Orange-ginger cranberry sauce

I think a lot of people don't realize how easy it is to make cranberry sauce from scratch. Here is my paraphrase of the cranberry sauce recipe that you will find on most packages of fresh cranberries.

• 1 pound fresh cranberries
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water

1. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan.
2. Simmer until it looks like cranberry sauce.

This recipe is foolproof and will result in a solid, tasty cranberry sauce. However, it can be improved upon. I've been experimenting for the past few years, and I've finally hit on a really wonderful cranberry sauce recipe. It is a bit more involved, but I think it is well worth it.

• 1 pound fresh cranberries
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 orange
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger

1. Steep the grated ginger in the boiling water for 5 minutes. Strain the ginger and discard. Reserve the ginger water.
2. Zest and juice the orange. Combine the orange juice with the ginger water. If the combined liquids are less than 1 cup in total, add water to bring it to 1 cup.
3. Combine the orange zest, orange juice mixture, sugar and cranberries in a sauce pan.
4. Simmer until it looks like cranberry sauce.

The addition of the orange and the ginger make a subtle, but tangible difference in the flavor of the sauce. The orange-ginger sauce has a brighter and tangier flavor. In a side by side comparison, most people should be able to tell that there is something different about the sauce, but I think it would take a discerning palate to be able to identify the specific flavors.

In my recipe, I've cut the sugar a bit, because I enjoy a tart cranberry sauce. This can be adjusted to taste. Steeping the ginger is a trick I learned from making ginger ale at home. I really wanted the fresh ginger flavor, but didn't want fibrous bits of ginger mixed into the sauce itself. The extra step of making a sort of ginger tea accomplishes this with minimal extra effort.

pH-kraut

Do you remember using purple cabbage as a pH indicator in grade school science class? I decided to combine that with my hobby of pickling.

As sauerkraut ferments it becomes more acidic, and since purple cabbage is a pH indicator, the sauerkraut should change color. I shredded a head of purple cabbage, mixed it with salt and thyme (yum!) and packed it into a plastic container. I took a picture every evening when I got home from work to see how it had changed.

I had hoped to post the whole series of photos here, but the sauerkraut didn't act as I had expected. The change was dramatic, but it happened too quickly for the series of photos to be of any use. The appearance of the sauerkraut did not change at all, until day 3 when it changed drastically. After that its appearance did not change again.

I will try this experiment again, but will have to change how I photograph the sauerkraut. I plan to set up a camera on a tripod taking pictures several times a minute so I can stitch them together into a time lapse video. Hopefully that will catch the dramatic change in detail, as well as some of the more subtle action like formation of bubbles.

And since I'm already pulling stuff off my camera, here's some dude rocking out on an old busted spinet piano at the MacArthur BART station.