'Must have' at our house for Thanksgiving:

[trof]

My funny son-in-law MUST have this or it isn't Thanksgiving for him.

I grew up with it (as did he) and I still like it OK, but now prefer something more like a relish Miz t. makes with crushed whole cranberries, orange zest, etc.

We always have both, but on his first Thanksgiving with us he brought his own can, just to be sure.

I do love this guy.

[Renew Deal]

1. That's my favorite

Nothing like a cold slab of cranberry sauce

[LiberalElite]

3. Me too

[femmocrat]

2. We like that kind too.

One year my husband bought the one with the whole berries and no one liked it. LOL

[PennyK]

9. I can relate

My mom always got the jellied kind. Once, she got a can of the 'whole' that was mislabelled, and my sister was horrified! She wrote a letter of complaint to Ocean Spray -- and they sent her a CASE of the jellied stuff!

[flying rabbit]

4. Yeah,

It is not Thanksgiving without it. I always request it to be sure.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. I love that stuff.

I love how when you dump it out of the can it goes *splort* and then it just lies there on the plate and jiggles. And you can see the imprint of the seams of the can. It's like a big red negative of the can it came in. It's awesome.

[seaglass]

10. The imprint of the can also works as a great slicing guide. :-) My husband loves this stuff

and I like it too but prefer the William Sonoma Apple Orange cranberry sauce.

I once made a cranberry sauce, it was a Martha Stewart recipe with blood oranges and jalapenos and it was horrendous. Never doing the homemade again.

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. People are using it to make cranberry jello shots n/t

[bigwillq]

7. I think cranberry sauce is gross.

lol

[GOLGO 13]

8. For me it's some kind of liquor.

I can deal with family on that day as long as there's liquor & football. With these 2 crucial elements, I can withstand any nonsense that happens on T-day.

[Kali]

11. oh boy

I am afraid the whole damn package is the "must have" around here and I am just not feeling it.

turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, gross sweet potato with marshmallow goo, etc etc etc

[OriginalGeek]

12. My MIL always made both too

the canned for my wife and the relish for everyone else. Except me - I won't eat either.

I've already heard several times this year "I'M NOT MAKING ALL THAT CRAP MOM MUSED TO MAKE EVERY YEAR!" That means only one dressing. One type of cranberries. probably store-bought pies (MIL made everything from scratch except that canned cranberry stuff). My MIL was a wizard and a saint - cooking several versions of everything to make sure everyone was happy. Apparently my wife inherited none of that lol.

[FSogol]

13. I love that stuff too. I buy it year round now to have with my sandwiches. n/t

[Worried senior]

14. That's what we have too

Don't care for the relish mix.

[jmowreader]

15. Here's how to make your own

You need:

Ingredients:
Four bags of cranberries, washed and picked through
2-1/2 cups of water
3 cups of sugar, or stevia if you like
A bottle of Certo pectin, if you used stevia

Equipment:
Smallest dutch oven you have
Wooden spoon
Wire-mesh sieve - NOT a colander, a sieve
Bowl big enough to hold the sieve
Jello molds

Process:
Put the water in the pan and bring it to a boil. Add the sugar and stir till it dissolves. Add the cranberries and cook JUST until the skins break - this is important! If you cook it too long you can recover by adding pectin. If you stop cooking right when the skins stop breaking - this sounds a little like popcorn popping - you'll be fine. If you used stevia instead of sugar, follow the instructions on the Certo bottle for the amount of pectin to put in.

Put about a cup of the hot mix in the sieve, which you already put in the bowl, and squeeze out the glop with the spoon. dump the skins into something for discard or eating later, and repeat until you're out of hot mix.

Then put the stuff in jello molds and stick in the fridge to cool. It'll set up really nicely.

[Moondog]

16. A small quantity of this stuff

transforms an ordinary turkey sandwich into an event.