Happy Thanksgiving Canada! You should be cooking right now.
For you folks down in the Colonies, we whacky Canadians turn the holiday season on its head and have Thanksgiving before Halloween up here. That is to say before our turkeys freeze and snow covers the cranberry bogs.
If your cranberry sauce comes from a tin, I hate you. Or rather I don’t respect your pantry. Perhaps the easiest recipe on the planet is cranberry sauce. It’s even printed on the back of the bag of fresh berries fer chriss sake. Get a heavy-bottomed sauce pan, add the bag of berries, a cup of sugar, a cup of water, and simmer on low until they start to pop open, about six minutes. Mush them with the back of a spatula or old school potato masher. You’re done. Cool in the fridge to set and never, ever buy that pre-congealed mess again, even if you do still giggle at the shape when it comes out of the tin.
Protip: The bags are usually 340g (12 ounces) just in case you’re out picking your own from local growers here in the Maritimes. Also, don’t walk away from the pan when you’re simmering because they foam up like mad as the pectin releases and you *WILL* get spill over onto your stove if you’re not there to tend things. Trust me when I tell you that burnt cranberries stink.
One of my favourite twists to this delicious berry simplicity is to add some spice. A mere dash of ground cinnamon certainly works but go nuts and try tiny amounts of fresh peppercorn, a few slices of fresh ginger, or even the famous-in-my-own-mind chai spice permutation. For that I take my chai spice mix of spices (cracked cardamom pods, cut ginger, cinnamon chips, freshly crushed peppercorn, cloves, etc.) and brew for ten minutes in boiling water to strain and use in the recipe as above.
I told you it was easy.
