Cranberry Sauce: never buying it in a can again...

Bonnie made homemade cranberry sauce the other day and I couldn't believe how easy she made it look...so I had to try it for myself.  The verdict:  it really is that easy!  I'll never buy canned cranberry sauce again - unless I'm in a place so isolated that fresh cranberries are nowhere to be found and I have a craving I cannot control.  Don't see either happening often, so I see lots of homemade cranberry sauce in my future! :)

There were several recipes on the back of the bag of cranberries, and I was tempted to try the cranberry orange bread, but I stuck to the plan and made the sauce.

The whole recipe is 1 bag of fresh cranberries, 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar. That's it.  I decided to be crazy like Bonnie and add  the zest of 1 orange to add another flavor.

Once all your ingredients are in the saucepan, boil rigorously for 5 minutes.  The cranberries pop as they boil, but I walked away to clean something and only heard a couple.  Sad.

I don't recommend walking away like I did, because my rigorous boil got a little out of hand and now I have a sticky, sugary, cranberry mess on my stove-top.  That'll be fun to clean later.

Here's the finished sauce, cooling.  We'll be having it tonight with beef stroganoff for dinner:

Cranberry sauce didn't make the cut for our Thanksgiving menu, but now I'll have to add it :)