Cranberry Sauce

Ella, my little chef, helped me make the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving tomorrow. The recipe is from the book we have been reading this week called A Pioneer Thanksgiving: A Story of Harvest Celebrations in 1841 Written by Barbara Greenwood and Illustrated by Heather Collins. It was a really simple recipe to make and Ella loved hearing the cranberries pop as they cooked.






Here's the recipe:

PIONEER CRANBERRY SAUCE

2 c. of fresh cranberries
1 Tbsp butter
1 c. sugar
1 c. water
1 tsp. cinnamon

1. Combine the cranberries, butter, sugar, and water in a pot. Ask an adult to turn on the burner to medium. Heat the mixture to the boiling point, stirring until the sugar dissolves.

2. Boil rapidly until the berries pop, about 5 minutes.

3. Ask an adult to take the pot off the burner. Let the sauce cool for 5 minutes, then stir in the cinnamon.

4. Cover the sauce and put it in the refrigerator until firm. Store leftover sauce in fridge or freezer.

Pioneer Cooking

The girls have been studying about the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder and we have been reading The Long Winter together. We have been having so much fun learning about the lives of the early pioneers. We found some great pioneer recipe books at the library and had fun making some of the recipes from them last week. We made homemade butter, blueberry jam, and some yummy muffins.

To make butter first you shake, shake, shake your cream. E took this step VERY seriously....notice the look of intense concentration on her face lol.

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Then when E got tired of shake, shake, shaking the jar she passed it on to G for some more shaking. Careful, don't drop the jar!


Then when we sufficiently wore G out (who knew making butter could be such a good workout) she passed the jar on to Miss R for some more shaking (who then got tired and Mommy and Grandma got a turn at shaking).


Once the butter was seperated we poured the contents of the jar into a clean linen napkin to squeeze and strain out all the liquid buttermilk which was used to make pancakes the following morning. E loved the squeezing part (squishin' it as she called it) and viola we have BUTTER! :)

The butter after it was chilled for about an hour. Now ready to serve.

Then it was on to blueberry jam making. R mashed the blueberries and added the water and sugar and everyone took turns stirring it while it cooked. (E and Grandma pictured below)

Mmmmm....the finished product! :)

Then it was on to muffin making! We had a slight disagreement whether we should make plain muffins or blueberry muffins so we decided to make both. Yum!

Mmmmmmmm.....fresh from the oven!

The table all set for a little tea party with Grandma and my girls (candlelight compliments of the candle R made at the Heritage Log Cabin earlier in the month).

What a great way to spend a wintery afternoon. :)