Thursday, November 26, 2009

A Thanksgiving Side Dish

A few weeks ago my mother asked me if I could find a cranberry relish recipe for her. She's a big fan of cranberry relish as it's served by Boston Market and wanted to serve it at Thanksgiving dinner.
I did a quick Google search, found something that looked good, and emailed the link to her.
Well, she got busy, one thing led to another, she never got a chance to even get into her email to see the link. When she told me a couple days before the dinner that she was just going to serve regular cranberry jelly I decided to make it and surprise her with it.
Here's the link to the recipe and here's the recipe itself:

Ingredients -
1 pound can of jellied cranberry sauce
10oz jar Smucker’s Simply Fruit orange marmalade
1/4 tsp ground ginger
2 cups fresh cranberries coursely chopped
1/3 cups walnuts finely chopped

Directions -
In 2-qt saucepan, over medium-low heat, stir together jellied sauce, marmalade and ginger until melted (6-8 minutes). Add coursely chopped fresh cranberries and reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring frequently until cranberries pop. They will be slightly softened (not too crisp). Stir in walnuts and set aside to cool. Once lukewarm, cover and refrigerate. Serve cold.

That doesn't sound too bad, does it?
Then I couldn't find Smucker's Simply Fruit Orange Marmalade in either of the two stores I shop at. I ended up simply getting a good quality orange marmalade and it worked fine.
Have you ever had to cut 2 cups of cranberries in half? Holy cow, that took a few minutes!
Actually, though, the recipe was pretty easy to make.
Since I'd never had the original cranberry relish at Boston Market I had to wait until Mom tried it to see if it was right.

Here's all the ingredients ready to be put to use.
You know, those little bags of spices are way cheaper than the big bottle. I just save bottles from other spices and use those for storing these. Works great.



Cutting the cranberrys, one of the few times I have opted for a small sharp knife rather than a big sharp knife.



Finally, the last one goes under the knife.



1/3 cup walnuts finely chopped, back to the big knife!




Cooking... ah, this isn't hard at all.



And finally, the taste test... look at that happy smile!



Thanks for making dinner today, Mom. Everything was great. I'm glad everyone liked my little contribution.

2 comments:

Fayme Zelena Harper said...

I loved the homemade cranberry sauce and I loved even more that I've broken away from the 'ubiquitous can of cranberry sauce' from my childhood. And it really isn't all that hard to make. I plan to have this once a month, not just on Thanksgiving.

Guy Taylor said...

You can cut the cranberries!
Although, I have been told that it may not be necessary to cut them as they will pop during cooking.