Simply in Season: Thanksgiving Treat

For the past few years I've rather adopted the role of the official cranberry sauce maker on Thanksgiving. I always loved the canned jelly stuff and then one day, I wanted to try the real version and started with the basics: cranberries, water, and sugar. A few years into my tradition, I'm playing with different recipes in hopes of being able to perfect my own. I feel like I'm getting closer than ever. I wanted to do one with a lot of spices and cooked in wine instead of water so I found and used this recipe.

This year I'll be spending Thanksgiving with my boyfriend's family but I still wanted to continue my tradition. I decided to buy some jars and cook up a few batches to share with the people I'm thankful for. By decorating the jar with some ribbon and trim in some seasonal colors you turn a simple thing into a lovely little gift.

This year I'm thankful for my loving and supportive family. So I sent them a jar.

This year I'm thankful for my job, having a job, learning at my job. So my boss gets one.

This year I'm thankful for the new; new opportunities, new friendships. So I'm bringing one to the party.

ingredients: cranberries, brown sugar, shiraz cabernet,

cinnamon, nutmeg, crystalized ginger, ground cloves, navel oranges

This is a fairly simple recipe with not a lot of work. Cutting the segments out of the orange is the most time consuming thing, but it's worth it and not that hard. Just use a little knife, like so.

Ta-da!

Now chop up the crystallized ginger and combine all the ingredients together. Then continue to follow the directions until it cooks up into a jelly. Let cool, then jar, and share the love.