Let the Festivities Begin

On Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember my family always had a raw cranberry relish on the table with the turkey. This is by far my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal. Yeah, most people go for the turkey or mashed potatoes. Homemade apple stuffing with giblets is a close second for me and I guess that is less unusual, but I have been able to do Thanksgiving in New York without the stuffing - I can't go with out my cranberry relish though.

I find it to be an excellent addition to the table, helping to cut the richness of the rest of the meal. A very tangy and tart sensation, over the years I have tweaked and changed the recipe from the classic cranberry orange relish you used to be able to find on your average bag of Fresh Ocean Spray Cranberries. As I have gotten older I found the sugar addition to be just too much and really just made the relish sweet and sour. I hope you like my changes which I believe give the relish more complex flavor and tamper the tartness without letting it get too sweet. Let me know if you try it!


Cranberry Orange Relish
Makes 26oz. (fills to regular jelly jars)

Ingredients:

One bag fresh cranberries

One large navel orange or two small oranges such as Satsuma, Mandarin, Tangerines, etc.

1/4 c. raisins (golden or regular depending on your aesthetic)

1/4 c. sugar (you can use honey instead as long as the cranberries are thawed)

1 tsp. Cinnamon

Method:

1. Wash the cranberries and orange well (since they are not cooked you want to get any junk off them, especially pesticides if you are not using organic).

2. Cut the orange in to hunks and make sure you take all the seeds out, but DON’T PEAL IT. You don’t have to cut it up much since the food processor (or blender if you prefer) will do all the work for you.

3. Put the whole bag of cranberries and the orange in and process until practically pureed (If you use a blender usually the mixture needs a little coercing at this point and an occasional well placed stir will do wonders to keep the whole thing moving along. My mom would make it in a blender and usually there was a sacrificed wooden spoon involved. Now I use a food processor and it makes the whole process very easy.)

4. Add in the raisins and process until you only see little chunks of raisin at most.

5. Mix in the sweetener and the cinnamon. This is what the consistency should be like:

6. Spoon into a bowl or cute jar. I start saving jelly jars when the weather gets cooler so that I can reuse them for this then I don't have to worry about getting my bowl back at the end of the night!

Notes: You can add more raisins, sugar and cinnamon at you leisure, these measurements are just a good starting place. If you find it's too tart for you I recommend adding more raisins before you add more sweetener as they do a better job to tamper the tartness than the sugar.