Cranberry Sauce

I made Cranberry Sauce to take to my friend's house this Thanksgiving.  Funny story around this dish.  I was never a fan of cranberry sauce growing up, but I remember being fascinated with the tube of it as it came out of the can and managed to still look like a tin can but just cranberry colored.  So, fast forward a million years or so and I am a mom and learning to love cooking.  I made a cranberry dipping sauce and a cranberry sauce from Alton Brown one Thanksgiving and I liked it.  I decide then and there it isn't cranberry sauce I disliked but the canned stuff we always had as a kid.  I write a newsletter for Front Porch Pickings, a local and organic produce delivery company that serves Volusia county.  It is my job to offer recipes for the produce, particularly the more unusual items that many may not have cooked with.  Well this week was all Thanksgiving items, cranberries included.  I relate my above experience with cranberry sauce for the section on cranberries making a joke of the fact that my family's recipe for cranberry sauce involved a can and an opener.  As I often do, I forward my newsletter to my mom so she can get the recipes.  Her response was, "I made fresh cranberry sauce every Thanksgiving and Christmas!"  =:O  Oops!  Luckily my mom is wonderful and understanding and didn't take any offence.  I guess that I just didn't care for cranberry sauce as a kid, but remember the canned stuff only because of it's bizarre can shape.  So, before I ramble too much about my shoddy memory of holidays past, let me return to the dish.  It is easy to make, and is so very much better (not to mention better for you) to make it from fresh berries than to open a can.


Cranberry Sauce
1/4 c  freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 c  100 percent cranberry juice not cocktail
1 c  honey
1 lb fresh cranberries approximately 4 cups

Directions

Wash the cranberries and discard any soft or wrinkled ones.
Combine the orange juice, cranberry juice and honey in a 2-quart
saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and then reduce the
heat to medium-low and simmer for 5 minutes. Add the cranberries and
cook for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries burst
and the mixture thickens. Do not cook for more than 15 minutes as the
pectin will start to break down and the sauce will not set as well.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
Carefully spoon the cranberry sauce into a 3 cup mold. Place in the
refrigerator for at least 6 hours and up to overnight.
Remove from the refrigerator, overturn the mold and slide out the sauce.
Slice and serve.