Simple Cranberry Sauce

After using cranberries as decorations during the holidays, I wound up with a half a bag of fresh, whole cranberries in the fridge. I love cranberries - salads, oatmeal, muffins, breads, juice - but I have never done anything except decorate with the fresh kind.

I hate to waste food - it's expensive, and usually easily avoided. I didn't want these beautiful berries to just end up in the compost, so I decided to make some homemade cranberry sauce.

Allrecipes.com recommends 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of orange juice per 12 oz. of cranberries. I only had 6 oz of cranberries, so I used 1/2 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of orange juice.

Melt the sugar in the orange juice over medium-high heat.

Pour the cranberries into the mixture, and stir. Turn the heat to low.

Stir the cranberries occasionally, over low heat, until the cranberries burst. This took mine about 7 minutes.

Remove from heat. Sauce will set up as it cools.

I'm excited to use this fresh sauce in a pork recipe later this week!