Pickled Cranberries - Delicious Holiday Side Dish

My whole life, I thought that I disliked cranberry sauce.  I only recall a gelatinous blob of bittersweet disappointment on our Thanksgiving and Christmas table.  And then, some years, it didn't make its weary way to the table at all.  I never understood it, because Grandma Irma is such a great cook...what could this goo BE?  And I'm supposed to put it on turkey?  Yuck. 

Perhaps this cranberry smear ruining my turkey was the beginning of my lifelong disdain for mixing savory and sweet.  Coconut-laced Pad Thai?  No thanks.  Pineapple pizza?  There's me, picking it all off.

Since then, my palate has grown quite a bit; recently I have enjoyed mango chutney and even add fruit to my green salads regularly.  These are big steps for me, especially the chutney.  But until last Thanksgiving, when the host of the dinner I was attending asked me to bring cranberry sauce, I had never recalled enjoying cranberry sauce.  I looked up a recipe online, and I honestly can't remember the recipe or where I found it, but it was good.  I'll have to find it and share it, but it blew away all of my crusty beliefs about cranberry sauce.  I even put some on my turkey at dinnertime, and I liked it.

So, when I saw this recipe on a blog I sometimes read via Facebook, Food in Jars, I had to try it.  I never really thought of it this way, but cranberry sauce is, well, cranberry jam!  Nerd-bird eureka!  Please click on this link for the full recipe:  Pickled Cranberries.  Marisa of Food in Jars has an easy-to-follow recipe, creative ways to enjoy the finished product, and gorgeous photos to accompany it all.  You will not be disappointed!  xo, AB