Cranberry Orange Sauce

     I believe that I fall into that category that people call Traditionalist when referring to cranberry sauce. That means that I eat the can shaped jelly stuff. I love that the ridges that the can make in the jelly show you exactly where to cut the servings. I have been perfectly happy with my can shaped cranberry stuff for YEARS. People have brought the homemade stuff to our dinners before, but I have always chosen the canned over the homemade.
     HOWEVER, I felt that since I was writing this blog, I should make an attempt at the homemade cranberry sauce. Plus, cranberries were on sale for 99 cents a bag this week. I figured that if it was an epic fail I wasn't out too much.
      I decided that it would be fun to make a sauce that had a citrus flavor to compliment the cranberries. SO I decided to use orange juice as my liquid in my recipe. I also used brown sugar instead of plain old white sugar. I was shocked that the recipe only has 3 ingredients. I found recipes that had many more ingredients, but let's not get crazy here.....I mean I eat the canned stuff after all. It doesn't have to be TOO gourmet. So I adapted this basic three ingredient recipe by changing the liquid and using brown sugar instead of white. Here is what I came up with.....

Cranberry Orange Sauce
1 Cup Orange Juice
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1 12 oz. bag of Cranberries (washed)

In a saucepan over medium heat dissolve the brown sugar in the orange juice. Stir in the cranberries. Cook until the cranberries start to pop (they start about 8 min. into cooking).  At this point you can smash some of the berries to release the juices (I used the whisk I was cooking with to smoosh). Cook for approximately 4-5 min. Remove from the heat and place in a bowl. Sauce will thicken as it cools. This can be made a few days ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator.

Combine orange juice and brown sugar in a saucepan.

Cook until cranberries start to "pop" you will hear them and visibly see their skins have a crack.

Use the whisk and smoosh some of the berries

Sauce will thicken as it cools. Store in the refrigerator.

Enjoy!!

-Jessica