Brandied Cranberry Sauce

Hey there. It's been a while, huh? I guess we've just been busy over here. I suppose I could recount what all we've been up to since I last posted at the beginning of October, but 1. it probably isn't terribly interesting and 2. I don't want to think back and try and remember what all we've been doing haha. I suppose I could give you a brief summary though. I've made a few cakes (which I'll show you eventually), we cat sat for a weekend, baby sat for a weekend, and have just been busy working and doing things around the house. Here for your viewing pleasure are a couple of cute cats :) The orange one is Chase who you've seen before here on the blog. We were watching him for the weekend. The black cat is Jet and he belongs to our neighbor but he wants to belong to us haha. He always comes and meows at our door. We love him.

I wanted to do a post about the cakes I've made recently but thought that instead I would show you a recipe that might actually be useful for Thanksgiving this coming week. If you've ever had Thanksgiving dinner with my family then you've probably tried or at least seen these cranberries. My Mom has been making them for almost as long as I can remember and they are one of my absolute favorite parts of Thanksgiving dinner! Last year I even discovered a way to use the leftover cranberry sauce for day after Thanksgiving breakfast. Hopefully I will show you that recipe later this week. Of course if you're stuck with leftover cranberry sauce, it excellent on turkey sandwiches and by the spoonful :) , which is one of my favorite ways to eat it. The other great thing about these cranberries is that the last FOREVER in the fridge. It's probably because of the copious amounts of sugar and also the brandy haha.

Now for the recipe (it's so easy it is hardly a recipe!)

Brandied Cranberries
(From my Mom, not sure where she got it from)

1 pound fresh cranberries (NOT dried cranberries)
2 cups of sugar
1/4 cup of peach brandy

(Note: in these pictures I was making a quadruple batch of these cranberries. I wouldn't recommend doing that haha. I over-estimated my cranberry sauce needs I guess.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Start by rinsing, sorting and weighing out your cranberries. When sorting them you just want to pick out any really mushy ones or ones that are obviously bad.

Place the cranberries onto a jelly roll pan (or any large, rimmed baking sheet) and spread into a single layer.

Then sprinkle the sugar evenly over the cranberries. I will look like A LOT of sugar, but the cranberries need that since they are very sour on their own.

Cover the pan tightly with foil and place in the oven for 1 hour.

When removing the pan from the oven be very careful since the pan is now filled with the soft cranberries and a delicious cranberry syrup. Once the pan has cooled for a few minutes, remove the foil.

Finally, stir in the brandy. If your pans aren't too full, you can just pour the peach brandy right over your cranberries. I put my cooked cranberries into a bowl first since I had so much.

Then they're done!  Enjoy! I hope you do decide to try these this Thanksgiving. I'll be bringing some to our potluck at work this Tuesday, some to Ohio for Thanksgiving dinner, then I should have plenty leftover for me :)

In other news, I can hardly believe that it's almost December which means almost Christmas! I have a couple more cakes to do in December, then we'll be doing some whirlwind traveling around Christmas time. Between now and then though, I will try my best to soak in all the holiday cheer and to spread a little too. This has always been my favorite time of year but it seems the older I get the faster it goes by. Maybe I'll just leave my Christmas decorations up extra long this year!

I guess that's it for tonight. I'll try to not wait so long before posting again, but won't make any promises. If I don't get back on here before Thursday, have a Happy Thanksgiving!