Kumquat and Cranberry Sauce

40 lg. kumquats

¾c frozen cranberries

This amount of fruit = 4c

~ no kumquats? - you can use cuties

~ a lemon and cranberries instead

½t pumpkin pie spice

½t ground cardamom

¾t black pepper

1c water

1c light brown sugar

1c organic cane sugar

These kumquats grew on a great little tree I bought recently.    Shown before and after cutting off the fruit and pruning the tree.  

After harvesting and pruning

These are  3-4 times bigger than those you'll find in the grocery store. Those look like orange grape tomatoes. The big ones have seeds, the little ones won't. Either buy or pick some if you have access to a tree. At first, about a month ago, I had many orange ones. Since I live in Minnesota, the tree doesn't get enough sun this time of the year. Mine aren't totally ripe but were really good anyway!




Spray them with a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and warm water.  Scrub, rinse well, then let them dry.

This next part takes time. Cut up the kumquats, into small pieces. The entire fruit is used, just remove the seeds. Once the fruit is prepared, sprinkle it with the pepper and spices.

Simmer the water and sugar 5 minutes then add the fruit.  Simmer another 10-12 minutes, then pour everything into a colander over another pot, stir this gently to get all the liquid into the pan.  Simmer that another 5 minutes to evaporate more of the liquid.  Add the fruit once again and bring up the heat to steaming.  Pour into 2 pint jars and another small one.  Seal and store in the refrigerator.

This is great over vanilla ice cream or served with fish, pork, turkey or chicken. . .Lin