The Healthy Reds for Christmas -Cranberries: Cranberry Upside Down Cake, Fresh Chopped Cranberry Salad with Apples, Golden Raisins and Walnuts

Besides, trimming the tree with cranberry and popcorn and having the usual sauce with turkey, the cranberry gets neglected otherwise. It is a must for good bladder health, and where it stars most is in the antioxidant/phytonutrient category. The berry is a great addition of Vitamin C to the diet. One cup of juice has 25 mg of vitamin C and if you can find it, unsweetened cranberry juice is the best with added honey or stevia for sweetness.

Here we feature a easy recipe for using fresh cranberries that are baked as a topping (frosting) for a cake and a fresh salad with cranberries, honey, celery and apples! I love upside down cakes. Add fruit to bottom of the pan, some sweetener, dot with butter and add the batter of your choice and bake. Unmold when cooled on a rack.

The name “cranberry” derives from the Pilgrim name for the fruit, “craneberry”, so called because the small, pink blossoms that appear in the spring resemble the head and bill of a Sandhill crane. European settlers adopted the Native American uses for the fruit and found the berry a valuable bartering tool. They were used by the Native American Indian for food, fabric dye and as a medicine.
Recent observational and clinical studies have raised interest in the potential health effects of cranberry consumption, an association that appears to be due to the phytochemical content of this fruit. The profile of cranberry bioactives is distinct from that of other berry fruit, being rich in A-type proanthocyanidins (PACs) in contrast to the B-type PACs present in most other fruit.

You gotta love those PAC’s!

In the next recipe, we feature fresh cranberries chopped with other raw ingredients and honey and nuts as a side dish for chicken pork or turkey, but I like it best as a side salad with fresh greens, like arugala.

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

• 1 cup of whole cranberries
• 2 stalks of celery hand sliced
• 1 apple cored
• 2 tablespoons of honey or 1- 3 drops of stevia (more or less for taste)
  a pinch of cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon of orange zest
• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 1 tablespoon golden raisins (optional)

Place all ingredients, except the celery, into the food processor and chop for one minute. Add celery to mixture and let sit for a few minutes and serve with greens. A balsamic olive oil dressing can be added.