A while back, I mentioned in the comments that I would be trying out an idea to use some of my frozen cranberries combined with commercial apple juice concentrate to make a no-sugar added cran-apple juice. This week, I tried it out and made a 64-oz pitcher.
Here's what I used:
2 cups of frozen, whole cranberries
3 cups of water
1 12-oz can of frozen apple juice concentrate
additional water to fill the pitcher
So this is what I did:
I ground up the frozen, whole cranberries in the food processor (not super fine, just what you might do if you were to make cranberry bread). Next, I simmered the ground cranberries with about 3 cups of water in a stainless saucepan for about 30 minutes.
After cooling for a bit, I poured the cranberry slurry through a sieve placed over a wide-mouth, 64-oz pitcher and strained until no more liquid would drip through. I pressed it gently, but wanted to keep most of the sediment out of the juice. Next, I added the can of apple juice concentrate and enough water to fill to about the 1 and 3/4 quart-line on the pitcher. Stirred and chilled -- that's it. It took about 5-10 minutes of hands-on time while doing other tasks in the kitchen.
The verdict? It's not as cranberry-ish as commercial drinks -- more like a cranberry-infused apple juice. My family has really enjoyed this and I'll be making it again later this month. It adds variety to our beverages, gets us to use some of the frozen cranberries from last fall, and diversifies the nutrients that we consume in juice form.
I saved the leftover cranberry mush in the freezer to add to applesauce the next time I buy or make some.
Obviously, we could have simply drunk the apple juice made up plain. However, on such a tight grocery budget which limited the variety of ingredients that I could buy, it's been important for me to keep trying new ways to prepare the same ingredients, as well as tap into some of the items that we hand on hand from before the last couple of months. Variety really does stave off feelings of deprivation. Anyway, just thought that I'd share how it went.
