Walnuts, orange add zest to no-sugar-added cranberry relish

For many, cranberry sauce or relish is an absolute necessity on a Thanksgiving dinner table, which was true for most of my young life.

Every year, our family had two Thanksgiving dinners since my folks couldn’t choose between either of their families. Cranberry sauce resided on both dinner tables.

I never considered making cranberry sauce from scratch until spying fresh, organic cranberries at my local health food store. Thirteen years ago, I shared my no-added-sugar homemade cranberry sauce recipe.

At that time, there was no such thing as organic cranberry sauce. Plus, the commercial no-sugar cranberry sauces used artificial sweeteners, like NutraSweet to avoid adding sugar.

The only thing sweet about cranberries is that they’re lower in carbs than other fruits. Fresh cranberries have just 26% of the natural sugar of red grapes and 20% fewer calories.

In the past, when I’ve made a sugar-free cranberry relish, whatever was left over (usually not much) was tasty served over vanilla ice cream. Some folks blend cranberry relish or sauce into cream cheese and smear some on a day-after turkey sandwich. Yum.

Thinking about this year’s cranberry relish, I came across a relish recipe similar to mine (they used a cup of sugar and it’s nearly 400 calories) that included chopped walnuts. I liked that idea.

Using chopped nuts as an addition to just about anything, I usually toast them to bump up their flavor a notch. As cranberries are so strongly flavored alone, this seemed like a solid idea.

Since I liked grating a bit of orange rind into past relishes, I needed an organic orange. Normally I do not eat an orange’s peel, so that wouldn’t matter for, say, orange segments or juice. But for this, it matters.

The orange peel on conventionally grown oranges almost always contains two pesticides (thiabendazole and imazalil). For that reason, it is better to go with an organic orange.

To reduce energy waste and time, I roasted my walnuts in my toaster oven, which worked beautifully.

Once the walnuts were roasted, the cranberries rinsed, the orange peel grated, and the orange juiced, I was ready to make my cranberry relish and was pleased at how quickly it came together.

It tasted amazing; so much better than any canned product and was a beautiful bright red.

The walnuts and orange juice boosted my relish’s flavor in really positive ways. And, I reduced the amount of sugar substitute thanks to the orange juice’s natural sweetness.

Give this a try for your Thanksgiving dinner.

• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at 1leanwizard@gmail.com.

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No-Sugar-Added Cranberry Relish

½ cup chopped walnuts

1 bag (12 ounces) fresh or frozen cranberries, organic preferred

22 packets (equivalent to about 1 cup of sugar) sugar substitute (such as Truvia or Stevia)

1 navel orange (organic preferred)

2 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven or toaster oven to 350 degrees. Spread the walnuts onto an oven-safe pan. When the oven is hot, roast the walnuts, stirring from time to time, for 5 minutes or until lightly toasted. Remove to a wire rack and cool.

Meanwhile, transfer the cranberries into a colander and rinse under cold water; picking out and discarding any bruised berries.

Using a microplane, finely grate the orange skin avoiding any white parts. Then, cut the orange in half and squeeze the juice into a glass bowl. Set aside.

Set 1/2 cup of the cranberries aside and add the remaining cranberries to a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar substitute, orange zest, orange juice and water to the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries are soft, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat slightly and cook until the cranberries burst, about 10-12 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and add the reserved cranberries and roasted walnuts. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 to 4 more minutes. Remove from the heat, cool completely, transfer to a container, cover and refrigerate. Makes 2 cups.

Nutrition values per tablespoon: 18 calories (58% from fat), 1.1 g fat (0.1 g saturated fat), 2.1 g carbohydrates (1.4 net carbs), 0.6 g sugars, 0.6 g fiber, 0.3 g protein, 0 mg cholesterol, 0 mg sodium

— Don Mauer