I have been working on Thanksgiving 2021 for a while.  We are flying to my brother’s house in AZ.  It is not like cooking in a fully equipped kitchen like here.  Mary and Bud would rather eat out than cook.  Because of my condition I have to cut down on the amount of dishes.  Our appetizers will be cheese and crackers, nuts and olives.  No cooking there.  My brother and Jim will be cooking the turkey on the grill.  While in the new food warehouse today we found brining salt.  So I will bring it out.  I ordered ahead the Williams Sonoma stuffing bread and it had 2 accompaniments.  One is chestnuts, I forgot the other.  Our sweet potatoes will be plain and hopefully they will fit on the grill.  Vegetable will Brussels sprouts with bacon.  Our cousin Sandy and her husband live in Pheonix also and they are coming.  For years when I was little, Sandy’s mom made banana cream pie for the snack after they finished whatever card game they were playing.  I loved that pie. Sandy Is bringing the pie.  That solved the problem of Jim likes pumpkin pie and Bud likes mincemeat pie.  I like my Aunt’s banana cream pie.  

No one likes cranberry sauce but me.  Last time we had thanksgiving in AZ., I ordered and sent Williams Sonoma cranberry sauce.  I brought it home.  I found a very interesting relish on allrecipes.com this year and I made it today.  I will divide it into I believe 4 jelly jars and just bring one to AZ.  I tasted it when it had cooled slightly.  It’s a little sweeter than I like, but I have experimented with cranberry sauce for years.  There is one from NC that Martha featured in her magazine one year and it remains my favorite.  I may make it for Christmas gifts this year.  

Ingredients:

2 C fresh cranberries

1 C fresh blueberries

1 C orange juice

3/4 C white sugar

1 t grated orange zest

1 t vanilla

Directions:

1. Heat all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat.  
2. Cook and stir until the sugar dissolves and berries soften, about 15 minutes.  
3. Cover and chill until ready to serve.