Orange Cranberry Sauce

Tomato harvest crisis. Eduardo had overestimated how many tomatoes our five plants would produce. We have a hundred pounds of tomatoes in the kitchen. I am not kidding. Eduardo brought them in over three days and piled them on every surface. I said, "Eduardo." He said, "I know." He looked chastened. He said, "I will call Miguel Jr. He can take some."

I said, "No. I am going to can them." I have never canned anything in my life. My mother never canned anything. Abuela Consuelo never canned anything. In Puerto Rico you do not need to can because you can grow year-round. In Connecticut you need to can or you lose everything when the frost comes. I decided I would learn.

I bought supplies at the hardware store. Mason jars, lids, a big canning pot, tongs. I watched three YouTube videos. I called my neighbor Mrs. Pelletier, who has been canning for forty years, and she came over on Thursday and taught me the basics. Water bath for acid-high tomatoes. Boil the jars. Fill hot. Process for forty minutes. Check the seals.

Thursday through Saturday I processed tomatoes. I made a basic sauce — onions, garlic, basil, salt, olive oil, slow-cooked until thick — and I canned it. Mrs. Pelletier came over both days. She brought her own jars. We canned together at my kitchen for six hours at a stretch. She told me stories about her grandmother in Quebec who used to can strawberries in July and maple syrup every spring. I told her about Luz María and Abuela Consuelo. Two seventy-year-old women — okay, I am fifty-eight, not seventy, but close enough — trading grandmother stories over a steaming pot of tomatoes.

We made forty quart jars. Forty jars of tomato sauce, sitting on my pantry shelf, sealed, dated, neat. A winter of sauce. I have never had a winter of sauce. I am going to give jars to my children, my neighbors, Gladys, Ana, maybe send a jar to Marisol if it survives the flight. I will keep ten for myself. This is the new ritual. This is the thing retirement has given me: a harvest I did not plan to have and that I learned to preserve.

Mami on Sunday ate pasta with my new sauce and said, "This is good." I said, "Mami, I made this sauce. From tomatoes Eduardo grew." She said, "With what seasoning?" I said, "Garlic, onion, basil, salt, olive oil." She said, "Add a little sofrito next time." Of course. She is right. I will. Wepa.

Once Mrs. Pelletier taught me that a pantry shelf full of jars is its own kind of peace, I could not stop. When cranberry season arrived just weeks after our tomato marathon, I thought: why not keep going? Orange Cranberry Sauce is everything I now love about preserving — it is fast, it smells like the season, and a jar of it handed to Gladys or Ana says the same thing forty quart jars of tomato sauce said to me: I made this, I saved it, it is yours. Mami would probably tell me to add a little something extra here too, and maybe she’d be right, but for now this is the recipe — bright, tart, and exactly enough.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 20 minutes | Servings: 10 (about 2.5 cups)

Ingredients

12 oz (340g) fresh or frozen cranberries, rinsed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup fresh orange juice (from about 2 medium oranges)
1 tablespoon orange zest
1/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
Pinch of salt

Instructions

Combine the base. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, stir together the cranberries, sugar, orange juice, water, and salt until combined.
Cook until the cranberries burst. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10–12 minutes until the cranberries have burst and the sauce has thickened to your liking.
Add zest and finish. Remove from heat and stir in the orange zest and cinnamon if using. Taste and adjust sweetness with a little more sugar if desired.
Cool and store. Allow the sauce to cool to room temperature. It will thicken further as it cools. Transfer to a clean jar or airtight container. Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks, or process in a water bath canner for 15 minutes for shelf-stable storage.

Nutrition (per serving)

Orange Cranberry Sauce — A New Ritual of Preserving What the Season Gives You