Red Zinfandel Cranberry Sauce

Thanksgiving is not complete without cranberry sauce. For years, we have always opened up a can of that jiggly cranberry sauce in the can.  I had never had fresh cranberry sauce until one day many many years ago at a holiday luncheon at work, I tried fresh cranberry sauce. I was never the same. All of these years I had been seriously missing out. I made up for lost time by playing around with every possible cranberry sauce concoction I could come up with.

Now my family has fresh cranberry sauce every Thanksgiving and we often have two or three different kinds just because I love coming up with unique ones. Cranberry sauce is incredibly easy to make.  This recipe has a full bodied Red Zinfandel, mulling spices, and fresh plump cranberries.  

Your house will smell amazing amazing amazing while this is cooking and I promise you the end result is sweet and flavorful. Don't worry about the alcohol content of the Red Zinfandel because as it cooks, all alcoholic content dissipates,leaving nothing but flavor note after flavor note. So your children can eat this too:-)

Fresh Cranberries

I got this great Red Zinfandel from Trader Joes.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups red Zinfandel

1 cup sugar

1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar

6 whole cloves

6 whole allspice

2 cinnamon sticks

1 large strip orange peel

1 12-ounce bag fresh cranberries

Directions

1. Open the bottle of Red Zinfandel and pour yourself a glass:-)  or put on some good music.  Why don't you do both?

Combine all ingredients except cranberries in medium saucepan. Bring to boil over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Reduce heat and simmer until reduced to 1 3/4 cups, about 10 minutes. Strain syrup into large saucepan. Add cranberries to syrup and cook over medium heat until berries burst, about 6 minutes. Cool. Transfer sauce to medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate until cold.