Thanksgiving is merely a day away. At some point in my first years of hosting Thanksgiving on my own, I realized that cranberry sauce could be made fresh at home with no effort whatsoever. I have no memories of cranberry sauce on the table growing up. Maybe I had some tragic incident with canned sauce that I've buried deep inside and predisposes me to a serious bias against it. But when I moved out and made it for the first time, I felt like I had uncovered some crazy culinary secret. {Shhh... don't tell anyone. Cranberry sauce from scratch tastes so fancy, but it's so easy to make. We mustn't alert the masses!}
But, what is a recipe if you don't change it and make it your own? I challenge you to not only make it fresh, but to go beyond the typical back-of-the-bag recipe. Instead of the traditional orange juice infused sauce, you'll be using regular water and adding Meyer lemon zest. Why Meyer lemons? Because it's a fancy winter lemon which perfectly complements the festivities of the season. And it's so much sweeter than your standard Eureka lemon. Trust me. You won't regret it.
Meyer Lemon Infused Cranberry Sauce
Requires:
Zest of 1 to 2 Meyer Lemons
1 bag of freshor frozen whole cranberries
1 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
The 'to-do':
Somewhere at your standard grocery store, you'll find bags of fresh cranberries. They should measure about 12oz each. For each bag, you'll heat 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar until the sugar has dissolved. Once the sugar is dissolved, bring the mixture to a boil for 5 minutes. Add in your bag of cranberries and the lemon zest. Continue boiling for 10 to 15 minutes until the cranberries start making a popping sound and they start to look like they are about to get mushy. Turn off the heat and let it cool. {I like to mash mine a little with a whisk.} Transfer it to a container, let it cool a bit, then stick it in the fridge until you're ready to use it. It will thicken up as it cools. {I doubled the recipe and was able to fill three 16oz mason jars.}
Contemplating stockpiling canned cranberry sauce for the inevitable doomsday,
Sunshine
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