You know that crazy lady who is up till 3 am baking cupcakes for her kid’s birthday in the super cute little mason jars, topped with perfect butter cream frosting, and little checkered pendant flags.
Or the lady who sets about spring cleaning her entire house in one day along with a complete redecorating project.
Or the person who buys one (living) chicken and thinks, “What the heck, if I can handle one I might as well just take on eight more and try to manage a mini-farm in my backyard“.
Yeah, that’s me.
I’m a bit of an overachiever.
It’s genes. I inherited it. At least that’s the way it feels. The idea of going beyond, way beyond seems to run in my blood. It goes deep.
I will admit the overachiever in me does stop somewhere…laundry. It’s like suddenly every overachieving cell in my body comes to a complete halt. Screech! And the underachiever makes itself well known. But, we will save that for another day. We aren’t going to talk about laundry today, just glorious food.
Thanksgiving is two weeks away. Incredible! Where did the precious month of November go? With the arrival of Thanksgiving in just days, I got to thinking about all my favorite Thanksgiving dishes. If you are a foodie of any kind, Thanksgiving is the holiday for you! Think about the huge array of side dishes, the giant pastured turkey or ham, and the endless pies. It’s like food heaven.
Then it dawned on me. I haven’t published one single Thanksgiving recipe to the blog! Not a single one. Well, maybe one. Technically this sweet potato dish would be a great Thanksgiving side. But one lonely little Thanksgiving recipe? This overachiever started spinning the wheels in my ever-thinking head. I was pumped, inspired, and ready to take on something BIG.
The big plan was to make an entire Thanksgiving meal this weekend and write up a ton of recipes all in one big ol’ Thanksgiving post. Great overachieving plan!
I got this.
I started with my favorite cranberry sauce (it’s seriously yummy, folks). It’s a simple basic recipe that’s packed with flavor. Two Handy Manny shows later and one bowl of Orange-Apple Cranberry sauce, I decided my overachieving self had led me wrong. How in the world was I going to do this?
I had to kiss that idea good-bye and take my kids out for some much needed playtime.
New plan!
Over the next few days, my new plan is to share with you some of my favorite Thanksgiving recipes from sweet-tangy cranberry orange sauce to hearty homemade stuffing. Because it takes a lot of time to photograph and write up each recipe and I want to get these out to you in time for Thanksgiving and the holidays, I’m going to put my overachieving self to the side and keep these recipes short and simple. Just a couple of pics and a short (yup, I’m going to try to be short) blurb about each recipe.
I’ll be sharing a few other posts over the next couple of weeks, but for the most part I plan to stick to Thanksgiving and food.
Let’s get to it.
Today, I’m sharing a simple, yet delicious recipe full of flavor. Move aside flavorless cranberry sauce, we’ve got a new star. This Orange-Apple Cranberry Sauce is so easy to make, punches huge flavor thanks to the sweet cinnamon and a bit of spice from the cloves, and contains zero refined sugar. A cranberry sauce the whole family will love that’s also nourishing and simple.
Remember, the goal of this series is to keep things simple and yummy. This recipe is just that. All you will need is a good pot (here’s the one I use) and a few minutes of time. Although, if you have one of these nifty tools for peeling and coring the apples I highly recommend using it. I love to use the leftover sauce over homemade vanilla ice cream or yogurt,
Orange-Apple Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 lbs apples peeled and chopped
- 2 cups cranberries
- 1/2 orange juice and zest
- 1 cup honey
- 1 cup water
- 3 clove whole
- 1 cinnamon stick
Instructions
- Place the apples and cranberries in a Dutch Oven.
- Add in water, honey, cloves, and cinnamon stick.
- Squeeze the juice from half the orange over the apple and cranberry mixture.
- Zest the orange and add to the mixture.
- Bring to a boil, stirring ingredients together.
- Lower to a simmer and cook 30-40 minutes, until the liquid is reduced and the cranberries have "exploded" and apples are soft.
- Remove the cinnamon stick and cloves.
- Mash the mixture with a potato masher to desired consistency.
- Serve.
Any type of apple you recommend for this particular recipe? I’m excited to try this out!
Hey Cara, I was away last week, so I apologize for my late response. Hope you made the sauce and it turned out well. I have used a variety of apples, any type works.
I have made this recipe every year for Thanksgiving since you first posted it. This is one of my favorite dishes. Thank you so much for this recipe! It’s always a hit.
SO happy to hear that, Ashlea!
My family had Thanksgiving this past Sunday and I made this. Needless to say it didn’t turn out any where as pretty as yours looks, but everyone said it was really good. Thanks for the recipe!
Glad everyone liked it :). My food is never as pretty as when it’s photographed ;). I’m sure it was beautiful and delicious.
I feel the same way when I I trying to post recipes on my blog. You are not alone. You have all these ideas and recipes you want to put up but the time goes by so fast or some of the recipes don’t turn out. I feel ya!
This looks amazing. It’s going on the menu!
It’s amazing. I might have had a bowl or two or maybe three this morning 😉
How far in advance do you think I could make this?
It lasts about a week in the fridge, so you could make it a few days ahead of time.
Nice!! Thank you!