Confessions and Cranberries

Thanksgiving is creeping up on us!  I LOVE Thanksgiving dinner.  It is, hands down, my all time favorite meal.  I savor the co-mingling of the sweet from sweet potato souffle, with the saltiness of my Aunt Maria's cucumber salad, the smooth as silk gravy flowing over the lumpy mashed potatoes, the combination of hot and cold things on my plate at the same time, the mellow flavors of the turkey and dressing with the pungent tartness of good, home made cranberry sauce.  I am totally one of those people who doesn't really want anything to do with a cranberry sauce that came out of can. Sorry.  It's one of those things about me you just have to know.  I will never, ever, forget being at my grandmother's house one Thanksgiving and watching her carefully, slowly, painstakingly coaxing the cranberry sauce gelatin out of the can and rejoicing in the perfect lines from the can that allowed her to make even slices of the stuff.  Even at the tender age I was, I knew there had to be a better way.  Go ahead and try and guess which grandma.  I have 3, so you've only got a 33% of guessing correctly.  If you knew any of these fine ladies, you will likely be able to eliminate one right off the bat.  And my grandma with the canned stuff, well, she's got many, many other fabulous attributes so I don't think she worries too much about our cranberry differences.

But I digress.  You must make this cranberry recipe.  I have made several over the years, including my other grandma's which with her doubled sugar was my favorite standby until I found this one a couple years back. It is the ONLY cranberry recipe you need.  And you can make it the weekend before Thanksgiving, eliminating one thing to do on the day of.  In fact, it's better made ahead so all the flavors can mingle and marry.  And the color is breathtaking.  Put it in a cut crystal bowl, or any glass dish you have, and it just gleams on the table.

ALICE'S CRANBERRY SAUCE (from the Sweet & Savory blog by Alice if I remember correctly)

12 oz. bag cranberries
3/4 cup orange juice
2/3 cup brown sugar (I use dark brown)
1/3 cup white sugar
2 oz. rum (optional) Now you know I use this.  It gives it so much more depth of flavor.

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and cook on medium high 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  The cranberries will pop.  Cool.  Refrigerate until the big day.

That's IT!  Simple, you probably already have every single ingredient except the cranberries, but you're going to the grocery anyway, so buy some ahead and freeze the bag if you want to.  Just that before you cook 'em.  With this recipe there is simply no reason for that nasty canned stuff to be on anybody's table.  I'm just going to lay it out there.

Gobble gobble,
~S