Let me share with you a Thanksgiving secret, my homemade cranberry relish recipe.  Well, it’s really a cranberry orange sauce recipe. Fresh cranberries, orange juice, and sugar combine in a super quick easy cook recipe for Thanksgiving bliss.

You’ll never eat canned, jellied, high-fructose-corn-syruped cranberry sauce again.

Making your own cranberry relish is an, ahem, arduous task. Best round up some helpers.

And some ingredients, plus a pot with a lid. (sugar, orange juice, 12 oz. bag of fresh or frozen whole cranberries.)

Dissolve 1/2 c. sugar in 1 c. of orange juice on medium heat. Use more sugar if you like it sweet, less if you like it tart. You can always taste it towards the end of cooking and add more sugar if needed. Takes just a minute or so.

Meanwhile, rinse and pick through the cranberries. Get rid of any squishy or raisin-y ones.

Dump the cranberries in the pot, stir. Turn up the heat to medium high and put the lid on the pot. Wait for 5 minutes.

Soon enough you’ll hear a pop. Now the cranberries will start exploding. Give it a quick occasional stir and cook for 3-5 more minutes until popping stops and sauce coats the back of a spoon. If it foams up, just stir it back down or lift the pot off the heat for a moment.

It will be chunky – use a blender if you want it smoother.

Cool and serve.

You can make this a few days before Thanksgiving -it’s a great Wednesday activity for when the kids are out of school and looking for something to do.

Note: This post was originally published on Nov. 22, 2010. That baby up there is Miss A, age 3 now!

Linking up!
Totally Tasty Tuesdays at Mandy’s Recipe Box
Homemaking Tip at Thankful-Homemaker.com