Cranberries are a part of Thanksgiving tradition. There are literally dozens of ways to incorporate cranberries into your Thanksgiving celebration. Some of the best ideas are noted in the steps below. Add this to my Recipe Box.
Instructions
1. Make a wreath of natural food products, including cranberries, for your bird friends. There are dozen of sample ideas to be found in books and online to help you fashion a beautiful-looking wreath for decoration that also doubles as safe food for the birds that hang out in your yard.
2. Use cranberries in wreaths, garlands and trees for either inside or outside decor. These can be all natural, partly artificial and partly natural or all artificial by spraying the berries and other natural items with an acrylic sealer that will preserve the items for years to come.
3. Accent existing decorations like table decorations, candle wreaths and the like with cranberries. After the holiday is over, they can be easily removed to bring the decorations back to their normal look.
4. Make a cranberry tree for a table decoration using a foam cone, toothpicks and whole cloves, cinnamon sticks or artificial flowers for accent. Place toothpicks into the end of each cranberry. Using the other end of the toothpick, place the berries into the cone, one row at a time, working from bottom to top. Each alternate row, place the berries in between two of the berries in the row below them. Continue the process all the way to the top of the cone. Use whole cloves or cinnamon sticks to fill in any existing holes and to jazz up the tree as you wish. These add a pleasant holiday fragrance as well as more color and pizazz to your table decoration. You can also use artificial flowers for this purpose, choosing colors that help accent the rest of your table decor, food choices and general decor. You can even spray on a bit of glitter or make your own natural frosting look with beaten egg whites and sugar painted directly onto the tree and allowed to dry.
5. Use cranberries as garnish for your Thanksgiving food. Place parsley and cranberries around the turkey. Use toothpicks to decorate the top of your ham with random cranberries, or make your own design (like the initial of your family name). Use other items like whole cloves or cinnamon sticks along with the cranberries. Place fresh orange slices, twisted, with cranberries on each dinner place as garnish.
6. Make a cranberry sauce, using fresh cranberries, for your Thanksgiving food. Recipes for such sauces can be found in most cookbooks as well as on the Internet.
7. Make a cranberry relish that can be used either as a garnish or to accent your Thanksgiving food. While these recipes can be a bit more hard to come by, they do exist. Better yet, create your own relish, combining herbs and fruits into a creative combination.
8. Use cranberries in salads. They can add a bit of zing to a garden fresh salad, add tartness to a fruit salad or accent an amazing chicken salad. There are dozens of salad options for using cranberries that can be found in most cookbooks on the market today as well as online.
9. Make a cranberry mixed drink, punch or tea for Thanksgiving. Lots of mixed drink recipes today include cranberry juice. Use cranberries to accent the drinks you make. Cranberry punches are popular at holiday time, as well. I like to use fresh cranberries to garnish the punch after it is made by freezing the cranberries into the ice cubes I will use in punch. Fruit-flavored teas remain all the rage, so why not incorporate cranberries into your holiday tea?
10. Use cranberry sauce to flavor your holiday beets. The two flavors mix well together and are unexpected.
11. Make a cranberry bread or muffin for Thanksgiving breakfast. The combination of sweet and tangy can get your Thanksgiving day off to an amazing start.
12. Make a cranberry dessert. Incorporate them into an old standard pie, cake or kuchen recipe or find a new one to try. Make cranberry cookies or incorporate them into homemade candy. The possibilities are endless, with hundreds of recipe options available and many more to be found in your own creative mind.
Tags: your Thanksgiving, Make cranberry, cinnamon sticks, cloves cinnamon, cloves cinnamon sticks