Cranberry Sauce

Allrighty then...sooo, I haven't posted anything on here in well over a year (life got away from me for a while...). I have been promising myself that, as soon as we got a laptop, I would give it another go since I can now tote the Internet with me :)
For me it's one of those things where I am always putting it off in anticipation of just the right opportunity. Well just that presented itself yesterday in the form of some congealed, red, can shaped weirdness with ridges. I came across an add for the canned version of cranberry sauce in the paper containing some proud image of this glob, that sort of makes me doubtful as to anybodies urge to 'run right out and buy one'.
So here we are! While my cranberries are popping on the stove I decided to quick share our version of this indispensable condiment. Homemade cranberry sauce is really about the easiest thing you could think of making (especially around this time of year). I hope some of you try and let me know how you liked it. Happy Turkey Day :)


Cranberry Sauce

2 bags (12 oz. each) of fresh cranberries
1 orange
2 cups of sugar


Dump the cranberries into a pot which has enough room to let them bubble up a bit. Squeeze the juice from the orange into the pot (retrieve any stray seeds) and add two cups of sugar. You can certainly adjust the amounts of orange juice and sugar to your taste or even use lemon juice. Bring to a slow boil over medium to medium high heat and let cook for a while (seriously, I don't own a timer, keep an eye on it, stir and carefully taste every so often). I think cranberries are one of those berries that contain a good amount of pectin because ,as you will notice, this stuff thickens as it cools so I tend to add a quarter to a half cup of water during cooking.
O.K., as I type my berries have simmered away on low-ish for about half an hour and are now squishy but intact. At this point you can whether let the sauce cool and put it in a jar (since our sauce will be gone by Saturday I'm not even going to bother canning it) or use a blender stick (or masher or food processor...) to make the sauce more smooth and then let cool and jar. I puree ours a bit to arrive somewhere in between smooth and texture.
Sooo I hope my first post back has not been waaay to long winded for something as simple as this, but I do so love to talk about food ;)
Enjoy your turkeys and sides and desserts and most of all your families! I know I will! Happy Thanksgiving, S :)

Side note: I got pretty much exactly a one quart jar full of sauce out of this recipe (which means I'll be on the hunt for more cranberries ;)