Cranberry Sauce

I'm about to say something that will not be popular among food bloggers everywhere.

I like canned cranberry sauce.

I KNOW!!! I should be ashamed, but you know what? I'm not. Not even a little bit.  Sure it has an unnatural texture, shape, and mysteriously ambiguous origin (WAS it ever a cranberry?), but something about it reminds me of my childhood and is just plain comforting.  In fact, I'm such a fan of the canned stuff that I absolutely refused to eat any other kind of cranberry sauce until I was well into high school.  My first experience with real cranberry sauce was nothing less than religious.  The flavors of the home made variety are infinitely more complex and I was instantly hooked.  In all honesty, I eat cranberry sauce all year long, it's just plain too good to be eaten only on Thanksgiving! So the next time you feel like treating your taste buds to something truly delicious, I suggest you whip up a batch of this (it freezes beautifully) and eat it on everything from sandwiches to turkey burgers all the way up to (and through!) summer.




Cranberry Sauce
2 C sugar
1 Cinnamon stick
6 whole cloves
1/2 C water
1 orange, chopped (unpeeled)
12 oz pkg fresh (or frozen) cranberries
1/2 c lite rum (or some rum flavoring)
1 pkg golden raisins (16 oz)

Combine all ingredients
Boil, lower heat and simmer 15 minutes
Keeps 2-3 weeks in refrigerator and freezes well

*note: brown raisins were used in the picture, but I still recommend golden if available