… So I know that I’m really late on this (or, for you Americans, super early). Thanksgiving was earlier this week. I spent the holiday with some of my nearest and dearest, and ate entirely too many mashed potatoes. Entirely too many, but how can one say no to mashed potatoes?

One of my family’s holiday traditions, Thanksgiving, Christmas, or otherwise, is my Grandma’s cranberry orange relish. We aren’t much for cooked cranberry sauce, or the stuff that comes out of the can, our cranberry component to the big holiday meal comes in relish form.

It sounds weird, I know.  You hear the word relish and cucumber relish is probably what comes to mind. But it isn’t that at all.  It is, really simply, just cranberries and an orange run through the food processor with some sugar. At the same time though, it is so much more. It’s a gorgeous smell, refreshing and clean. It’s palpable texture, a little bit of bite, rather than the squish of a cooked sauce. It’s sweet from the orange, a hint of bitter from the peel, sour from the cranberry. It’s just so good.

My addiction to cranberry orange relish rivals my addiction to mashed potatoes. My mum is known to make double batches before a holiday so that we can keep half at home for ourselves. I’ll eat this on toast, on ice cream, in applesauce and on it’s own by the bowlful. (In a few days, there’ll be a really special yummy thing I made that included some of the relish. But you’ll have to come back to see what it is!)

So this year, in addition to being thankful for cranberry orange relish, I am thankful for: my loving and supportive family and friends, the beautiful wondrous country I call home, the bountiful freedoms and safety I live with, my somewhat-broken-but-still-splendid house, you people out there who come and read all of the random things I make and write about, and Mister for loving me and being exactly who he is. There are days, like today, when I look around me and wonder what kind of karma I had to have all this.

Thank you all.

xoxoxo

Cranberry Orange Relish

Ingredients

12 oz cranberries, fresh or frozen(thaw first)

1 navel orange

3/4 Cup sugar

Directions
  • Wash all of the fruit thoroughly.
  • Quarter the orange.
  • Place all of the orange pieces in the food processor. Yes, the whole orange goes in, peel and all.  Pulse until they are all cut up into small pieces, kind of like this:

  • Then, add the cranberries to the food processor. Continue to pulse until everything is cut up into teeny tiny pieces. Think of the relish you put on hot dogs, pieces that big, just cranberrier and tastier.
  • Move everything from the food processor into a bowl that you can put a lid on. Add the sugar to the bowl and stir to mix.
  • The relish will be at its best if you put the lid on the bowl and stick it in the fridge overnight, giving it time to marry makes a big difference. Or you can be like me and steal just a little right away, and then put it in the fridge for the next day.

Happy belated, or very early, Thanksgiving everyone! What are you thankful for this year?