Crazy for Cranberry Sauce

It seems to be right around this time of year when people start to hang up their Christmas lights, the days get shorter and the wind gets colder and I start to think about cranberries.

There are a lot of great cranberry sauce recipes out there. Some of them add ginger or orange zest to the sauce to make the flavour more complex and interesting.

What do you do to your cranberry sauce to make it stand apart?

I can tell you what I do. I add roasted walnuts and pecans. I take anywhere from 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of a combination or walnuts and pecans and I chop them roughly and place them in a pan on my stove top over medium-high heat and stir them occasionally. Keep an eye that they don't burn. You want the nice flavour of the roasted nuts to permeate your cranberry sauce - not a burnt flavour. In about 5 minutes the scent of roasted nuts will be evident and they will have turned a golden brown.

Prepare your sauce as per your normal instructions and add the nuts close to the end of the cooking time. Delicious!