Sweet & Savory Kitchens

Aunt Suzy says . . .

This year we will have two family gatherings for Thanksgiving.  The first is at my brother John’s on the actual day, which is also my birthday (yeah!!).  We mostly cooked the traditional family recipes because as in so many families . . . don’t mess with tradition!  But we also added a few new things, and everybody  attending brought something, so we had a fabulous menu, from turkey to pumpkin pie and everything in-between.  One thing stood out this year and that was cranberries.  Starting with dried cranberries on the spinach salad and fresh in the apple-cranberry pie with crumble topping, they were a featured ingredient.   My sister-in-law, Cindy, and I conspired on two delicious additions that used cranberries.  The first was Sparkling Pear Cocktail, which we found in this array of Thanksgiving Cocktails from Martha Stewart.  These were a refreshing, low alcohol way to start the festivities.  We were also looking for a new and different cranberry sauce, something that would be a departure from the usual.  We found this Brandy spiced cranberry sauce from The Galley Gourmet.  Even those of us who don’t particularly like cranberry sauce (me and my brother, John) thought it was fabulous – we all decided it’s a “keeper”.  Enjoy!