Cranberry Sauce Without The Ick

First things first - this is not my original recipe. All credit for the inspiration goes to Kelly at No Empty Chairs (noemptychairs.me), even the picture is from her blog - I'm sure you all noticed that the picture looked a lot more professional than mine ever do!  With all my medical issues as of late (at least I've a valid reason for not updating this time) I haven't been able to tinker in the kitchen much, instead I scoured the internet for a recipe that was as close to my old, filled with sugar one, that used a natural sweetener like stevia or agave since I've tightened the reins on our diet. No wheat gluten, no artificial anything, no preservatives, no GMOs (as much as I can tell), no anything chemically added to make it pretty that our bodies just flat out don't need. Anyway, with the holidays rapidly approaching, and me without the use of my right arm, it's very tempting to just get a can of the scary cranberry glop stuff rather than making my own like I've done since I started cooking thanksgiving dinner. It may have been tempting, but after I came across this recipe it wasn't anymore.  Big thanks to Kelly and No Empty Chairs for helping a (literally) broken girl out! (I made a few adjustments to make it closer to my old recipe, but I still believe Kelly should get the credit here.)

1/4 cup water 
3/4 cup fresh orange juice (use the orange that you get the zest from - you can play with the oj/water ratio, as long as you have 1 cup of liquid you'll be fine)
1 cup stevia (I use Stevia In The Raw, I think Truvia is the most recognized brand though)**

1 tsp Knox gelatin (if using sugar substitute)

1 cinnamon stick

1 tsp fresh grated orange peel
2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
Optional - dash of ginger, additional ground Saigon cinnamon. 

Place water in a medium saucepan. Sprinkle gelatin over water and let stand 5 minutes. Heat to a boil. Stir in orange juice, stevia, cinnamon stick and orange peel. Return to a boil; boil 5 minutes. Stir in cranberries, return to a low boil until cranberries pop. Remove from heat and remove cinnamon stick. Serve warm or cold.  I personally prefer to make it a day or two ahead of time and serve it cold, it allows the flavors to really come together that way and nothing is better than a bite of warm turkey with cold cranberry sauce on it. Mmmmm. 

**NOTE: Sugar substitutes vary a lot in sweetness, especially stevia. Start on the low side, a tablespoon at a time; taste cranberry sauce and add more to your taste, if necessary. You can also use part sugar/part stevia if you prefer - Truvia makes a 50/50 stevia/sugar blend called Truvia baking blend that's great to start with if you've never used stevia before. I used that for about 2 months to step us off sugar and artificial sweeteners before going to just stevia. It is a different kind of sweet than refined sugar but now we all (even the 3 year old) prefer the stevia sweet to sugar sweet.