My grandma makes a cranberry sauce thats AMAZING. I’ll have to ask her for the recipe. At least, I think it’s cranberry. It might be some other similar berry. It’s actually my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal.
I have gotten rave reviews for a recipe I found a few years back:
2 cups dry, fruity red wine (e.g. zinfadel)
1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
5 2-inch wide strips of orange peel
3/4 cup sugar
4 slices of fresh ginger
6 whole cloves
2 cinamon sticks
1 12oz bag of cranberries
Toss everything but the cranberries in a medium sauce pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Strain out all the solids and dump in the cranberries. Boil until the berries begin to pop, reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes.
My husband’s family has a very similar recipe. We even got the “food chopper” (it’s a grinder that attaches to a tabletop–in my family, we had a larger one that we used to grind meat into hamburger) as a wedding present.
My mother-in-law’s recipe is hilarious–it mentions such things as picking out the rotten berries from the cranberry bag, putting something under the grinder to catch the dripping juice, and the need to make it the night before instead of at the last minute “like your father does”.
My mom makes something out of this world with cranberries, although I’m not sure what you’d call it. Basically, it’s a jello mold but it’s fantastic. Some appropriate flavored jello (raspberry? cherry?) with pineapples, apples, dried cranberries and walnuts. I can get the exact recipe if you’d like (my guess is that there isn’t, in fact, a recipe, though).
Way more fruit than jello, btw. It’s really really good.
I make it up every year, and every year I think its good and everyone else has a little taste because its Thanksgiving - they think its good too, but its relish, not a dish. No one actually EATS the stuff in quantity. Though this year I did go through half a quart jar of it - but I had ten people.
Basics are cranberries and sugar.
Then you want spices - cinnamon is traditional. I like ginger. Nutmeg works well, as does cloves. I like a little cardamom because its one of those “this is different” tastes most people can’t place.
Orange juice or water work for the liquid - or bourbon, or all the above. I suppose a sweet wine would work. Brandy. Whiskey, lemonaid.
The only problem with this is you can never make the same thing twice.
I saute finely minced onion in butter with a sprinkling of salt, add the cranberries, simmer until they split, add sugar (while simmering) to taste. The salt, sugar and onions must balance.
Never leftovers.
Apparently I’m the hick, because I chop up raw cranberries, mixed with sugar, halved grapes, marshmallows, and Cool Whip…
My mom makes a refreshing cranberry relish that the fam just adores. It has oranges and red jello (any flavor as long as it’s red) and some other things too. She puts the fresh fruit through a meat grinder so it comes out kinda chunky.
This drives my wife crazy. She makes cranberry sauce all the time, but everybody wants the canned jello version. One friend called hers ‘ghetto cranberry sauce’, with a smile though. She doesn’t make it highly seasoned, but people just want to hear the <sauce coming out of can sound effect>.
My grandma made something similar-sounding last year and this year (I’d never had it before), and I loved it!
Yup, made it again this year! it is:
6-8 OZ package red jello
4 stalks celery, processed
2 C cranberries, processed
1/2 C walnuts, processed
1 large orange, peel and all, processed fine
1/2 C (I think) sugar
Make jello according to package “quickset” method, adding the sugar before you add the ice. Add remaining ingredents and stir well.
Chill untill very firm.
I need a new processor for Christmas, this just about killed mine this year! 
Ack! Thread-ja-vu! I was just about to post this exact thing!
Oh no! It’s CRANZOMBIES!
Same here. I was about to say “cranberries+sugar” for me, only to realize, while scrolling through the thread, I had already said that.
I noticed that recipe on the back of the cranberry packages this year.
Heh. I found my post too.
But wanted to stop by to thank janis for posting her recipe. One of the families that we spent Thanksgiving with when we were kids always brought that salad and I’d been looking for the recipe for some time. I know what I’m making later this week.