Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Recipe: Cranberry Chutney

Honey  that liquid gold we love to stir into tea or drizzle into hot cereal.  These days, it’s difficult to think of honey and not think about the difficulties facing honey bee populations around the globe, or the safety of the honey on our store shelves. Fortunately, this broader awareness is inspiring a demand for fresh, local honey, which is popping up at farmers’ markets and specialty stores all over the country. 

In her introduction to The Fresh Honey Cookbook, author Laurey Masterton writes that cooking with fresh honey is one more way to become “aware of what you can do to make sure [bees] continue to thrive.” If you have a jar of local honey in your pantry, why not use it to sweeten your cranberries this Thanksgiving and take a step toward helping bees in the process? 

Don’t know where to get local honey? Lots of places make it available online. Laurey recommends doing an Internet search. For cranberry honey, she suggests New England Cranberry Company in Lynn, Massachusetts, as a source. 

Cranberries. Photo by Namiwoo

Cranberry Chutney

This is my personal favorite contribution to a Thanksgiving meal. And, in truth, to me it is not really Thanksgiving without it. I’ll eat the stuff squished from a can, but this, chunky and real, wins. You can make chutney at other time of the year with fresh peaches, apples, pears, or figs — or whatever else happens to be ripe in just that season. Depending on the sweetness of the fruit, you may need to adjust the amount of honey you add.

Makes 3 cups

The ingredients:

1 (1-pound) bag fresh cranberries
2 navel oranges, unpeeled, cut into 6 wedges and then into thin slices
1/3 cup golden raisins
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon whole cloves
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup apple cider
½ cup honey, preferably cranberry honey
¼ cup apple cider vinegar

Here’s what you do:

  1. Pour the cranberries into a 2-quart pot. Add the oranges, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, salt, apple cider, honey, and vinegar. Bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat to low and simmer until the chutney thickens, about 20 minutes.
  2. Remove from the heat and serve warm or, if you prefer, chill and serve cold.
Recipe excerpted from The Fresh Honey Cookbook © 2013 by Laurey Masterton. All rights reserved.
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Laurey was recently featured on a recent episode of Cooking Channel's Chuck's Eat the Street. In "Best of the Blue Ridge," Chuck visits Laurey and her bees, and they cook up Honey Glazed Pork Tenderloin with Fresh Peach Salsa. Get the recipe, and see photos from the visit

Find more about Laurey and her Asheville, NC café here.
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Discover more Thanksgiving menu inspiration on Inside Storey! See yesterday's recipe for Bourbon Sweet Potato Tarts with Imperial Stout Sauce, and recipes from years past.

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