Cranberry Apple Pie

Quaking bogs can be treacherous places.  When my father introduced me to my first quaking bog, I followed instructions carefully and returned from that expedition without any good stories except that I made the bog bounce up and down by jumping as high as I could.  As I got older and braver (or more careless) I began to accumulate some stories.

There was the time I got stuck waist deep in mud while trying to jump from a dry bank over a small channel of open water separating the bog from the land.  Even better was the time I stepped into a hole in a bog a few feet back from the edge of the lake we were fishing.  In a fraction of a second I was treading water with my outstretched arms holding my head above water.  At least no one accused me of scaring the fish.  

I love bogs.  First, they are home to some rare plants that might well be called vegetarian carnivores, like pitcher plants and sundews.  Second, they protect some of my favorite little lakes from most timid fishermen and all expert anglers with big boats, motors and depth finders.  And third, bogs are where you find wild cranberries.

It has been many years since I picked enough wild cranberries for cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving or a cranberry apple pie, but I have fond memories of enjoying the ones picked by my father and grandfather.  After the first frost Dad would ask Grandpa Hopp if he was ready to go a-cranberrying.  The answer was always yes.

There were several lakes surrounded by cranberry bogs within a few minutes drive of Grandma and Grandpa’s.  On a sunny day Dad would tie the Old Town canoe on the car, drop off Mom and us kids with Grandma and pick up Grandpa who would be ready with a half dozen gunny sacks.

Dad and Grandpa would pull the canoe along the edge of the bog and pick the berries hanging over the water.  In a few hours they would have twenty or thirty pounds to share with Grandma and Grandpa Rang and aunts and uncles.  Wild cranberries are smaller than the tame ones we buy today, but I think that makes them taste a little better.  In the fall I still nibble some when we fish a secret lake surrounded by a bog.

One time a neighbor was visiting when Grandpa and Dad came home after a successful day.  He said to Grandpa, “Tony, I thought that you couldn’t swim.  Aren’t you afraid of going out in a canoe?”

I will never forget Grandpa’s reply:  “Not as soon as we have a bag full of cranberries.  If we tip over I’ll just grab the bag.  Cranberries float, you know.”  If you visit a  cranberry marsh during harvest you will see them floating inside booms before they are conveyed into trucks for shipment to canning factories.

Cranberries grow throughout the northern areas of America, Asia and Europe.  Native Americans were harvesting wild cranberries long before the first Europeans came ashore at Plymouth Rock or built the fort at Jamestown.   With guidance from their native neighbors, the settlers were soon harvesting cranberries to make sauce and pies.

The settlers brought apple trees to the new world, and soon thereafter someone invented the cranberry apple pie.   It’s a perfect dessert for an autumn or winter dinner, especially with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  Here is a good recipe.

INGREDIENTS:

Pie dough for a 9 or 10 inch pie plate
6 to 8 apples
2/3 to 3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 to 2 cups cranberries
2 T Flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. orange zest
3 T butter
1/8 tsp. salt

PROCEDURE:

Make the crust and line the bottom of your pie plate.

Peel and core the apples and cut them into a half inch dice.

Grate the orange zest (outer layer of the peel)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Mix the apples and cranberries in a large bowl.  Blend the flour, sugar and spices and salt together in a small bowl and stir into the fruit.  Place the fruit into the pie plate.  There should be enough filling to mound up in the middle of the plate.  If not, peel and cut another apple and add it to the pie.  Dot the filling with butter.

Roll out the remaining dough and cut it into strips about 3/4 inch wide and long enough to cover the pie.   Put four or five strips over the pie, then another four or five at right angles to make a simple lattice.  Use shorter pieces of dough to cover the remaining top of the pie.

With your fingers, seal the strips to the bottom crust and flute the edge of the pie Sprinkle the top of pie with sugar.    Bake the pie for 15 minutes on the bottom rack of the oven. Lower the  temperature to 350 degrees and move the pie to the middle rack. Bake the  pie about 35 to 45 minutes longer, until the crust is a deep golden brown and the  juices begin to bubble up.

NOTE:  You can use either fresh or frozen cranberries.  We usually buy ten pounds of cranberries from a marsh every fall, wash and sort the berries and freeze them in one quart bags.

Jerri usually puts three cups in each bag, which produces enough cranberry sauce for a dinner.  Her recipe is three cups berries, 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1 1/2 cups water.  Bring the sugar and water to a boil for about five minutes, add the berries and bring back to a boil.  Cook until most of the cranberries have burst.  Then remove from heat, stir and cool.

Cranberry Raspberry Jam

Wild raspberry jam is one of our favorites. Most years we have picked enough to make two or three batches plus plenty of fresh berries to top ice cream on hot days. But when summer rains fail to arrive on time, picking enough berries for even one batch can be a challenge. The situation was particularly dire a few years ago. We picked a cup and froze the berries, then another from the same small patch near the brook, but we never got enough for a full recipe.

Since we usually send jams and jellies in goody boxes to our siblings for Christmas, we needed to do something. I was so desperate that I even considered buying tame raspberries. However, since we had a lot of frozen cranberries, I decided to experiment with the few raspberries we had collected. The result was a resounding success.

This year our problem was scheduling visits to the cabin when the berries were ripe. We were saved by a friend who invited me to pick all the raspberries I needed from his garden. I made two batches of raspberry jam and Jerri froze two cartons of crushed raspberries ready to make cranberry raspberry jam when cranberries came into season.

Last Sunday we stopped at a cranberry marsh west of Stone Lake, Wisconsin, and bought ten pounds of beautiful berries. Tuesday we made twenty-three jars of cranberry raspberry jam. And again it was delicious.

Here is how to do it.

INGREDIENTS:

6 cups chopped cranberries

2 cups crushed wild or tame raspberries

7 1/2 cups sugar

1 pouch Certo fruit pectin

1/2 tsp. butter

Paraffin wax to seal the jars

PROCEDURE:

First wash and sterilize enough jelly jars to hold ten cups. Stand the washed jars upside down in a nine by thirteen-inch cake pan on the the range. Pour about an inch of hot water into the pan and bring the water to boiling for five minutes. Use canning tongs to remove the hot jars from the pan and allow them to drain on a rack.

Be sure that all the berries have been washed and picked over. Measure the sugar into a bowl. Open the Certo pouch and stand it in a cup or glass where you can reach it easily when the time comes to add the pectin.

Chop the cranberries. I use a small hand chopper. Do not purée the berries. Crush the raspberries. Put the prepared fruit into a Dutch oven and add the sugar and butter. Stir the sugar into the fruit and turn the heat on low. As liquid is released, raise the heat. Keep stirring and bring the jam to a full rolling boil (a boil that keeps bubbling when you stir it). Stir in the pectin and return the jam to a full rolling boil. Boil for one minute, stirring constantly.

Remove the jam from the heat and skim off any foam. A gravy ladle works great for this. Put the sterilized jars on waxed paper and use a dipper and funnel to fill the jars, leaving a one-third-inch head space. If necessary, use a piece of moistened paper towel to remove any dribbled jam from the tops of the jars.

Close the tops of the jars with screw caps or plastic wrap tied in place.

NOTES:  You can use unsweetened frozen raspberries from your local supermarket. Thaw and crush the berries before making the jam.  If the cranberries are frozen, you will find them easier to chop.