Thursday, November 10, 2005

Thanksgiving Thinking

Well, come on. It's on its way. Not much we can do about it.
Maybe you've already ordered your heritage turkey. Maybe dinner won't be a lot more imaginative than spiral-cut ham.
But please, please, don't buy your side dishes pre-made. I will allow catered gravy for those of you who are gravy-impaired (but for me, it's not really Thanksgiving without homemade turkey gravy).
Off limits, though, are canned yams; Stouffer's frozen vegetables; that horrendous salt-pile of green beans with mushroom soup and fried, canned onion rings; and completely ::forbidden:: is canned cranberry sauce.
I'm not even allowing you to make stove-top cranberries with orange rind and cinnamon. Trust me.
No. There is only one way. The one true way.
Bookmark this recipe.
In your head! In your head!
Zombie! Zombie! Zombie-ie-ie!

One True Way Cranberries

1 12-oz. bag of fresh cranberries
1 Tbsp. minced fresh sage leaves
1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup bourbon or brandy (optional)

Throw the berries, sage, nutmeg and sugar in a casserole or cast-iron skillet that has a well-fitting lid. Stir, cover, and place in a 350° oven for half an hour. Remove from oven and stir in the hooch, if using.
Allow to cool some.
It will keep for weeks, refrigerated. It's essential, spread lightly on bread with mayo, for turkey sandwiches... and iceberg lettuce, of course.

6 comments:

Jamie said...

I'm sorry, cc...I love ya, but there will be no sage in my cranberries. Ew ew ew ew ew.

Of course, I disdain orange rind in my cranberries, too. I'm weird like that.

Everything WILL be from scratch, though! :-)

Ilva said...

This sounds good, if I manage to find any cranberries here in Italy, I'll try it!

Monkey Gland said...

I've only ever been in the US for Thanksgiving the once. Myself and another Brit where working in LA. We were looking for somewhere to have lunch, got depressed, so we drove to Vegas instead and celebrated Rain Man style!

cookiecrumb said...

Jamie: Leave out the sage. It's just there to make me sound sophisticated anyway.
Ilva: I can't imagine finding cranberries in Italy, but then, I'm unsophisticated!
MG: Yeah, I figure if you're not gonna do one of those Norman Rockwell extended-family dinners, you should really go to the other extreme. Cigarettes and poker!

Greg said...

cookiecrumb is that a picture of you? Wow!

cookiecrumb said...

Greg: Who's zoomin' who? In case you don't know who that is, go here .