Cranberry Christmas

Miss Etta,
Your recipe sounds sooooo good. I love any recipe that doesn't involve much work and tastes good, too. I do so like cranberries but I have never been able to stomach that wobbly tube of red that plops out of a can, complete with those little can rims around it.

I know there are many who adore the canned sauce or they wouldn't be selling it. But to me it is like the fruit cake that everyone laughs about getting. Every year my Mama puts out a can of cranberry sauce and every year she is the only one at our huge family gathering who touches it.

It makes me shiver just thinking about it.

It is fun to poke though. If you take it and put it upright instead of laying it sideways on the plate it is good for a few fun minutes. It doesn't like to stay upright, it is like a mushy slinky. If you get two or three people who don't mind touching it (ugh) you can have lots of fun trying to make it stay up. After that? Lay it on the plate and serve it. No one will touch it anyway and it'll be good for giggles during dinner.

I am going to go to the store and try to find some fresh cranberries so I can try your recipe.

Have you every made a cranberry garland for the Christmas tree? One year I decided to go all natural on the tree. Popcorn, cookies, and a cranberry garland. We poked needles through more cranberries and popcorn that I care to remember. Push, ouch, push, ouch.

My poor fingers still hurt when I think about it and my children to this day can not stand the site of a tree with real popcorn or cranberries on it. Even plastic popcorn and cranberry garlands makes them cringe and hold their fingers.

I'm sure that our foremothers (you know our forefathers wouldn't have stooped to pushing a needle though a cranberry) had some easy way to make those garlands. I didn't know at the time and haven't cared to know since.

My family has invited themselves to our house this year for Christmas. I prefer to go mess up someone else's house but I will endure. It is only fair that I take an occasional turn at entertaining the masses.

Go Natural, You'll Never Go Back

Afternoon Miss Faye,

I spent the morning trying to get the last of the fixins that I need to cook a Christmas dinner. After searching high and low for fresh cranberries, I finally located them at the baby Kroger in Peachtree City. The sweet lady who always checks me out was looking all festive in her Santa hat, complete with her usual big smile. As she was ringing up the groceries, she remarked she had never even had fresh cranberries. She was a canned jellied cranberry sauce kinda girl.

I almost fainted right then and there. The canned stuff?? Bah, humbug!

A strange feeling came over me. Now, Miss Faye, don't you go to thinking I was getting a red face again. No. I felt charitable. I knew I had to save her from the sauce.

Quickly, before the feeling passed, I blurted out my recipe for fresh cranberry relish. It's so wonderful that I think I'll even give you a gift by sharing my secret with you.

Take one bag of cranberries. Add one big naval orange. Do not, and I repeat, do not peel it. Just cut the orange up into several sections. Be sure you have washed the orange well. Place cranberries and orange into a food processor. Turn on processor and make sure the cranberries and orange are all chopped up together. Add sugar. Some like it sweeter than others. I add about a cup of sugar to the cranberry-orange mixture. Refrigerate and let it sit overnight. Done!!

Once you go natural, you'll never go back to canned!!!

Enjoy!

Miss Etta