Cranberry-Raspberry Delight

This is one of my favourite Thanksgiving recipes (ahem–Canadian readers–`tis Thanksgiving here in the States). We were invited for our first Thanksgiving in the States to a friend and colleague’s house in San Francisco. I loved every minute of it. Mainly because Thanksgiving is such a traditional holiday here and my friend was a very non-traditional person. He was gay. He and his partner were such lovely hosts and the food was fabulous. It was a great introduction to the HUGE holiday tradition. Here is a recipe from that Thanksgiving dinner. It is now one of my trademark recipes.

• 2 bags of cranberries. Mum—this is approximately 4 cups of cranberries from Wolf Creek Campground!
• 2 oranges
• one package of raspberry Jell-O
• one and a half to two cups of sugar
• 2 or 3 stalks of celery, diced
• small bag of pecans, crushed or chopped into very small pieces
• one or two boxes of raspberries. Mum–2 cups for you because I know you pick your raspberries.
• 6-8 mint leaves

Rinse and chop the cranberries in a food processor until finely chopped. Rinse and grate the oranges for orange zest. Add the zest to the cranberries and then squeeze the juice into the chopped cranberries. Use one or both depending upon how much of the flavour you want.

Mix the Jell-O powder in with the cranberries, orange zest, and orange juice. Add the sugar. Depending on your dietary requirements, I don’t believe you need to add the sugar. In fact, I think I’ve made this without the sugar entirely and I think it turned out fine.

Add the tiny pieces of celery and the crushed bag of pecans and mix everything together.

Find a glass bowl in your kitchen. If you don’t have a glass bowl, you should get one. Layer the bottom of the bowl with the raspberries. Put 1/3 the cranberry mixture on top. Layer more raspberries and then 1/3 more cranberry mixture. Actually, depending on your serving bowl, you decide on the layers. I think I used four layers not six. You decide. Not a problem. Just know that you can use up to six layers if you ration it properly.

Garnish with mint leaves. Be creative. My Dad always does such an awesome job. I think I have pictures from last Christmas. I’ll have to dig them out.

That’s it. You never thought you’d eat cranberry sauce, but you’ll definitely eat this!!!