Orange Cranberry Sauce

I firmly believe that cranberry sauce should not just be reserved for Thanksgiving. Personally, I serve cranberry sauce with turkey and sometimes even stuffed chicken all year along and I love it. However, I have to admit that until now, my experience with cranberry sauce has been the canned stuff (grew up on it and love it!) which I always dress up with other ingredients to make it not taste so can-y. This year, I happened to be in America during peak fresh cranberry season and snuck a few bags back with me. I made this fresh cranberry sauce for our Thanksgiving Shabbat and was BLOWN AWAY by how delicious it is. It doesn't even seem related to the canned stuff!! It is so absolutely delicious that I literally had to lick the pot (not a pretty image but a very necessary piece of info). The best part is that it is so easy to make and easy to customize to your liking. I did some research around the supermarkets here and you can even get frozen cranberries here so I will be making this long after my imported cranberries run out. The natural pectin in the cranberries  helps to thicken the sauce and the citrus and cinnamon are just fabulous flavors with the cranberries. Feel free to add less sugar if you prefer the sauce a little tarter but 1 cup was just perfect for me. Enjoy- I sure as heck did!

1 12oz bag of fresh or frozen cranberries

1 1/2 tsp orange zest

juice of one orange

1 cinnamon stick

3/4- 1 cup sugar 

1 cup water

2 cloves

pinch of salt (crucial!)

Place all the ingredients in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and let it cook until all or most of the cranberries have popped (about 10 minutes) Cook another 5 minutes and then cool and refrigerate before serving. The sauce will firm up as it chills.

(My apologies if you are turning your computer around, I just have no idea how to rotate this picture)

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