Wednesday, November 26, 2008

my family relish


family relish
Originally uploaded by Bridgman Pottery
I hope that Thanksgiving is warm and bright for all of you. I like to get all of my cooking done the day before, so that I'm more relaxed and not trying to do six things at once. Today's agenda is prepping the turkey, making the pumpkin cheesecake, and cranberry relish. In honor of the day and in thanks for your friendship, I thought I'd share my family's cranberry relish recipe. It is very simple, uncooked, and a bit unexpected. My mother's youngest sister found this recipe some time in the 80s and we've been making it ever since:

cranberry relish
1 bag whole fresh cranberries
1 orange (organic), quartered
1 c pecans
1/2-1 c sugar.

Pulse in the food processor until the orange is in tiny bits and everything is well blended. This is tart, crunchy, and my idea of the perfect combination of sweet (just barely) and savory (lots). It will make your leftover turkey sandwich sing. It will jazz up oatmeal. It is a nice garnish to a very rich dish like pumpkin cheesecake. Whatever we have leftover we pop in the freezer and use for the rest of the winter (because we usually make 3 batches). As you can see, I like to eat it with a spoon.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I'm off to make that pumpkin cheesecake now.

4 comments:

Mama Urchin said...

This is the kind of cranberry relish we have too, minus the pecans. Happy Thanksgiving Melissa!

Anonymous said...

That looks really good.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving, Melissa!

Nellie said...

Hi Melissa,
Thanks for sharing your Family relish receipe. I also make a version of the very same thing, but next time, I'm surely going to add the pecans. I'm away from home this Thanksgiving, so I haven't been able to fix all the goodies that go along with Thanksgiving dinner. It feels really weird!

Love your blog and I check it almost every day. Happy Thanksgiving!

B:-)

Leila said...

Thanks for sharing the recipe! I've never had cranberry relish exactly so I think I'll try this one -- maybe for Christmas so I don't have to wait a full year.