Cranberry Thanksgiving
By: Keith
I definitely expect a few things on Thanksgiving – turkey, sweet potatoes, some sort of pie and cranberries. Everything else about Thanksgiving dinner is sort of optional in my mind, like green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, dinner rolls and whatever random weird dishes relatives always seem to bring over. Maybe my favorite though is the cranberries. Cranberries make everything taste better. The problem with cranberry sauce though is that most people don’t take it seriously enough. It’s become a thanksgiving tradition to squeeze the cranberries out of a can like dog food. The result is always a can shaped cranberry mold sitting vertical in a serving dish. It’s comical, and it’s sad. It stands, jiggling, next to the proud turkey and steaming fresh sweet potatoes looking like a thanksgiving charity case. And, just like we do with the dog food, so the dog doesn’t realize he’s getting substandard fare, we mash it up and tease it a bit to make it look more respectable – which never works. I propose, in the interest of making cranberries a respectable member of the Thanksgiving table again, that we all make our own sauce. It’s easy too. Here’s a comparison:
Honest Cranberry Sauce:
12 oz bag of frozen cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 strip orange zest
Salt and pepper
Empty half the bag of cranberries into a sauce pan with the 1 cup of sugar and the orange zest along with 2 tablespoons of water. Cook on low heat until the sugar dissolves and the cranberries become soft (should take about 10 minutes). Increase the heat to medium and continue to cook and stir until the cranberries burst. Then reduce the heat again to low and stir in the rest of the cranberries (the other half of the bag). The add sugar, salt and pepper in whatever proportions taste right to you. Cool the whole thing to room temperature and — Bingo! Cranberry sauce!
Cranberry Crap:
Ingredients: Cranberries, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Water, Corn Syrup.
Shaped like a can, pointed at and mercilessly teased.
Those are your choices. Cranberry sauce is an integral part of thanksgiving. But, it’s been a neglected dish, and that’s unfortunate considering just how easy it is to make. It’s even more perplexing since it can keep for up to a year in the freezer. You could make it a week ahead of time and it would still be perfect. I’ll miss that squishy wheeze I get out of the can this year as the sauce plops onto the serving dish. But, like the fat girl next to her skinny friends, it’s just not right to use one poor dish to make the others look better. This year the cranberry sauce gets an upgrade. Viva La Cranberry Sauce!
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I, too, LOVE cranberry sauce. I have made my own for years and it’s the only kind my kids will eat. My recipe is very similar to yours except I leave out the pepper and throw in about a 1/2 cup of orange juice and half a cinnamon stick – just don’t forget to fish it out before you let the sauce cool.
Ashley makes it homemade yet doesn’t eat it. Come to think of it, I haven’t either. This year I’ll try it.
I couldn’t agree more. In ten to fifteen minutes and minimal effort you can have fresh, delicious cranberry sauce to put on your table. I remember loving the canned stuff as a kid, but I won’t ever buy it again.
.-= PJ Mullen´s last blog ..American Diabetes Month 2009 =-.