A quick stove top recipe for apple pear cranberry sauce. It’s great on meat or delicious by itself as dessert.
Wondering why you’re seeing an applesauce recipe 2 days before December and not 3 months ago?
Well, I shall tell you.
1. I was in the mood to bake on Monday. Like bake, bake. Cookie galore bake (perhaps because the second Thanksgiving was over, every food blogger I know threw up a holiday cookie recipe). Except guess who didn’t (and still doesn’t) have any sugar in her house? Yep. No sugar. Who the hell runs out of sugar? Is this the depression or something? I was making fun of a coworker last month for not having yeast on hand and now look at me.
2. My entire “crisper” drawer is still filled with apples from our csa. There are some that are getting so old the skin looks more wrinkly than my 83 year old grandma’s (who actually has quite nice skin though so that’s not a great analogy, but let’s just pretend).
3. My beloved Autumn Harvest candle is now officially burned out. (The applesauce makes the house smell like that candle in case you didn’t catch the correlation there.)
4. I had an intense craving for oatmeal with simmered apples stirred on top on Monday. Stupidly, I gave into the craving before I made the applesauce and had a pretty pathetic bowl of oats with a glob of almond butter instead. Of course, I had to rectify that yesterday morning with the actual applesauce and so now I’m 0 for 2 on staying paleo for breakfast this week. Which, I’ve realized I kind of like. I thoroughly enjoy carbs in the morning. After 10am, couldn’t care less for them outside of veggies and fruit. So this eating approach may become “a thing”.
And that is why applesauce is debuting itself on November 28.
I did try to be slightly festive and seasonally appropriate by throwing in some cranberries and pears for good measure.
If there’s one thing outside of cookies this time of year that are amazing, it’s pears.
Last year we got a mystery Harry & David tower of goodies that included 12 of their fabulous pears (among all the other moose munch type of stuff I have no interest in) and I was in heaven.
We seriously have no idea who the person was that sent it and there was no message, but fingers crossed he comes through again this year.
Mama needs some free pears!
Between the combination of tart and sweet apples, the fresh cranberries and the pears, this is like the perfect combination of sweet and lip puckering. It’d actually be excellent as a crisp too. Follow this pear crisp recipe and just use this compote as the fruit base.
It’s not quite a cookie, but it’ll do.
At least until I get more sugar.
Looking for a more traditional cranberry sauce? Try this slow cooker cranberry sauce that only uses 5 ingredients or, my favorite, bourbon cranberry sauce!
Apple Pear Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients
- 5 apples, mixture of sweet & tart, peeled, cored & chopped
- 1 pear, peeled, cored & chopped
- 1/2 cup fresh cranberries
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- pinch of salt
- Handful of golden raisins for garnish, optional
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a large pot. Cover and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Cook for about 15 minutes.
- Uncover pot and continue cooking for another 5-7 minutes, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon to break down the apples.
- Sprinkle in raisins if using and remove from heat.
- Serve warm or cold.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
I tried the paleo breakfast for about 2 months ( a solid good try) but ill be damned if I don’t get my oats in the morning! Plus I love brown rice and peanut butter on occasion! I’m totally with yah!
I am OBSESSED with the combination of apple, pear and cranberry! That’s the pie I made on Thanksgiving, and I’ll often just throw those three things in a crock pot with some molasses and cinnamon and have it for dessert!
And raisins would make it even better!
oooh, that sounds SO good as a pie!