Magie Monday: Cranberry Sauce For Any Occasion

Cranberries are not just for Thanksgiving anymore. While I have trouble finding them year round (although I can find almost every other berry), I think they work great with many dishes, especially pork roasts. Here is a great cranberry sauce from the one….the only….Maggie!

I have never made my own cranberry sauce. That is sort of weird for me, since I like to make my own, well, everything. We only eat cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, and only a couple of us like it, so the canned stuff worked just fine. But I saw this recipe on Stephanie O’Dea’s blog, and it looked easy. What really sold me was she said it made the house smell great. What the heck. I tried it.

YUM. YUM YUM.

I loved this sauce. The 2 others who eat the cranberry sauce loved this sauce. And, surprisingly, we now have 3  newly converted Cranberry Sauce Consumers! I think the kids were being nice since they knew I made this, and to their surprise they liked it enough for seconds!

We have a new member at our Thanksgiving table!

Crock Pot Cranberry Sauce

What you need:

–12 oz cranberries (fresh or frozen) –1/2 cup orange juice –1/2 cup water –1/2 cup brown sugar –1/2 cup white sugar –1/4 tsp cinnamon

What you do:

I used a small crock pot for this- 1 ½ quart.

Rinse the cranberries and place in the slow cooker Add the orange juice and water. Store bought is fine, but if you have fresh oranges, that would be lovely. And you can add the zest in there too for extra zing!

Add the sugar and the cinnamon. Stir. It will be very wet. Don’t worry- it all eventually cooks down to a beautiful sauce.

Cover and cook on high. It will take about 3 hours.

Stir every hour or so. After about 2 hours, and the skin from the cranberries has softened, the cranberries will “pop” when pushed with a spoon up against the side of the crock. Do this! It is sort of fun to pop them! Stir well.

Heat enough for it to be warm throughout. Take the lid off and heat on high for another 30 to 45 minutes. Your house will smell wonderful!

I made this the day before the big meal. It keeps for at least a week in the frig, so make this one ahead.