Someone sent me this infographic:
Wow, that’s a lot of cranberry sauce. The bottom of the graphic encourages people to choose low-sugar and low-fat foods as part of their holiday fare. We’re spending Thanksgiving with my work buddy Jim Taylor’s family (who hosted The Greatest Thanksgiving Ever last year, according to Alana), so I’ll eat whatever cranberry sauce they’re serving. I don’t go low-carb on once-per-year holidays.
The infographic reminded me of Chareva’s first attempt to make her own cranberry sauce. Sara was two years old, Alana was a baby. We invited some friends over for Thanksgiving dinner because their son and Sara enjoyed playing together in Mommy & Me classes.
Boy, did they ever enjoy playing together on Thanksgiving.
We had a small dining room table back in those days, so the kids ate first. A half-hour later, just the adult were sitting down to dinner, we noticed Sara and her playmate seemed unusually giggly. Sara has been a happy child since birth – in my mental images of her, she’s always smiling or laughing – but now she and the boy were chasing each other around, banging into furniture without caring, giggling all the while. Then they started hugging each other. We parents were amused. Awww, isn’t that cute?
I was slightly less amused after swallowing a few bites of Chareva’s cranberry sauce.
“Honey, does this cranberry sauce have vodka in it?”
“Yes, but the alcohol is supposed to cook away.”
“Uh-huh. Well, that may be, but I’m pretty sure I’m copping a bit of buzz from it.”
She took a few bites of the cranberry sauce.
“Oh, my god!”
“Yup. I think you got the kids a little drunk. We’d better keep an eye on them before they decide to drive to Las Vegas and get married.”
Sara fell asleep quite early that night.
To our non-American readers, Happy Thursday. To our American readers, Happy Thanksgiving. Remember to take a moment today to be grateful for something. (We moved to the farm almost exactly a year ago, so that alone gives me a reason to be thankful.) Enjoy the food, the family and friends, and the football games.
But whatever you do, try to keep the kids sober.
If you enjoy my posts, please consider a small donation to the Fat Head Kids GoFundMe campaign.
If her sauce is getting people drunk, I don’t understand why it wasn’t a big hit amongst the relatives 🙂 The best part of cranberry sauce is when I get to wiggle the can-shaped glob out in one piece and serve it at the table. The kids love it, the wife hates it.
Love! Haha. 🙂
I am on the record as saying that I do not like cranberry sauce (never have).
lol Poor Sara! Spiked cranberry sauce is a new one to me. I was thinking I might try doing my usual homemade sauce with xylitol to make it lower glycemic. I made strawberry jam that way and it was delicious. But you have to put a lot in to get the right sweetness.
Have a happy Thanksgiving, Naughton family!
Cranberry-vodka combination is highly regarded in Russian celebration tradition, but I never put any alcohol in a cranberry sauce. I just boil cranberries in a pan with some water, then add salt and small amount of sugar or a sugar substitute.
I don’t know where Chareva got the recipe, but she obviously didn’t cook the stuff long enough.
My family were basically tee-totallers, but one Christmas my aunt and uncle served a bit of wine. My uncle poured a small amount into each of several glasses, set them on the table and walked away. The glasses were near the edge of the table. My toddler cousin went down the row of glasses and partook of each. She, too, ended up tipsy and fell asleep on the living room floor. 🙂
Yes, I loved emptying the jellied cranberry intact from the can. Mom even had a special spoon just for serving it.
Happy Thanksgiving, Tom and family!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
If her sauce is getting people drunk, I don’t understand why it wasn’t a big hit amongst the relatives 🙂 The best part of cranberry sauce is when I get to wiggle the can-shaped glob out in one piece and serve it at the table. The kids love it, the wife hates it.
Love! Haha. 🙂
Just this morning I was wishing for a place to say how thankful I am for your almond bread recipe! I added 1 tbsp of caraway seed to the last batch for “rye” bread. I love to experiment, so each batch gets a little tweak.
Happy Thanksgiving to you, your lovely family and all your readers.
And to you and yours.
I am on the record as saying that I do not like cranberry sauce (never have).
lol Poor Sara! Spiked cranberry sauce is a new one to me. I was thinking I might try doing my usual homemade sauce with xylitol to make it lower glycemic. I made strawberry jam that way and it was delicious. But you have to put a lot in to get the right sweetness.
Have a happy Thanksgiving, Naughton family!
Cranberry-vodka combination is highly regarded in Russian celebration tradition, but I never put any alcohol in a cranberry sauce. I just boil cranberries in a pan with some water, then add salt and small amount of sugar or a sugar substitute.
I don’t know where Chareva got the recipe, but she obviously didn’t cook the stuff long enough.
My family were basically tee-totallers, but one Christmas my aunt and uncle served a bit of wine. My uncle poured a small amount into each of several glasses, set them on the table and walked away. The glasses were near the edge of the table. My toddler cousin went down the row of glasses and partook of each. She, too, ended up tipsy and fell asleep on the living room floor. 🙂
Yes, I loved emptying the jellied cranberry intact from the can. Mom even had a special spoon just for serving it.
Happy Thanksgiving, Tom and family!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
I don’t know if you noticed…at the bottom it says to remember to mix low fat options with your holiday treats. You might want to black out that out.
Yup, I saw that.
Just this morning I was wishing for a place to say how thankful I am for your almond bread recipe! I added 1 tbsp of caraway seed to the last batch for “rye” bread. I love to experiment, so each batch gets a little tweak.
Happy Thanksgiving to you, your lovely family and all your readers.
And to you and yours.
I don’t know if you noticed…at the bottom it says to remember to mix low fat options with your holiday treats. You might want to black out that out.
Yup, I saw that.
The only flaw I see in that infographics is: the vast, vast majority of that cranberry sauce ends up scraped into the trash! Think about it; people take a couple of tablespoons on their plates, and eat a half-a-teaspoon of it! (But I may be wrong: god knows *I* wouldn’t touch the stuff! {wink})
Happy T-giving Tom and family!
And to you.
The ad reads “8 BILLION cranberries.” Don’t you wonder who counted them?
The only flaw I see in that infographics is: the vast, vast majority of that cranberry sauce ends up scraped into the trash! Think about it; people take a couple of tablespoons on their plates, and eat a half-a-teaspoon of it! (But I may be wrong: god knows *I* wouldn’t touch the stuff! {wink})
Happy T-giving Tom and family!
And to you.
The ad reads “8 BILLION cranberries.” Don’t you wonder who counted them?
hehe…. thanks for the laugh! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family as well!
My daughter is the family member who likes the most to experiment with low-carb/paleo baking. She offered to bring “breadless bread” to Thanksgiving this year. I was pleasantly surprised when she brought something new and very delicious and proclaimed that she “stole it” from Tom Naughton! It was the almond butter bread and it truly was the best low-carb bread we’ve ever had. It was a big hit slathered in Kerry gold butter and served with my turkey, ham, spaghetti squash casserole, mashed cauliflower with gravy, and my tried and true Dana Carpender green bean casserole and the pumpkin cheesecake I got somewhere on line years ago. (Everything I made was steeped in butter and cream – I think I must have used a couple of quarts of cream in my preparations). Thanks so much to all of you and your contributions to supporting our successful low-carb lifestyle. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
I encourage stealing recipes.
hehe…. thanks for the laugh! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family as well!
My daughter is the family member who likes the most to experiment with low-carb/paleo baking. She offered to bring “breadless bread” to Thanksgiving this year. I was pleasantly surprised when she brought something new and very delicious and proclaimed that she “stole it” from Tom Naughton! It was the almond butter bread and it truly was the best low-carb bread we’ve ever had. It was a big hit slathered in Kerry gold butter and served with my turkey, ham, spaghetti squash casserole, mashed cauliflower with gravy, and my tried and true Dana Carpender green bean casserole and the pumpkin cheesecake I got somewhere on line years ago. (Everything I made was steeped in butter and cream – I think I must have used a couple of quarts of cream in my preparations). Thanks so much to all of you and your contributions to supporting our successful low-carb lifestyle. Happy Thanksgiving to all!
I encourage stealing recipes.
That story is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time.
We got a pretty good laugh out of it at the time … well, after we knew Sara was okay, anyway.
That story is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time.
We got a pretty good laugh out of it at the time … well, after we knew Sara was okay, anyway.
Is your work buddy Jim Taylor the legendary Packers fullback?
Nope, I don’t think that Jim Taylor took up programming for a living.
Is your work buddy Jim Taylor the legendary Packers fullback?
Nope, I don’t think that Jim Taylor took up programming for a living.
One holiday our collie was swaying and stumbling around the living room; we then saw him stagger into the dining room and swipe a few bourbon balls off the cookie plate with his tongue.
Whoops … did he hug anyone afterwards?
One holiday our collie was swaying and stumbling around the living room; we then saw him stagger into the dining room and swipe a few bourbon balls off the cookie plate with his tongue.
Whoops … did he hug anyone afterwards?
Thanks for the laugh, Tom! Those are the stories that go down in family history. 🙂
You mentioned that you don’t do low-carb on holidays like this. I totally agree with that! But, do you still enjoy the pumpkin or pecan pies or other sweets? I find that after not eating many sweets (a little dark chocolate now and then…can’t seem to break that habit) that things I used to like are now egregiously sweet. Just the other day as a test, I tried to eat an animal cracker – pretty low on the totem pole of sweetness – and it tasted horrible to me.
Just curious if you and others have experienced a change in your taste-buds and preferences after eating better for a while.
So at the start of the season, a happy holiday to you and all your readers!
I ate a small bit of pie, but sweets don’t appeal to me much. They didn’t even before I went low-carb. By the time I was a teen, I recognized that sugary desserts or sodas made me feel awful afterwards.
K
This reminds me of an Easter at my Aunt and Uncle’s house when I was little. My 6 yr old cousin discovered that wine tasted pretty good and my oldest brother and a cousin thought it would be funny to indulge him. My parents finally caught the 6 yr old trying to drag a 1 gallon jug of wine up the stairs to his room. By the time we left for the evening I could hear him crying over how sick he was. My brother got it pretty good from mom and dad when we got home. The funny part about it is when my fifth grade teacher asked the class for our holiday stories the next week. I raised my hand and soon had all the other kids rolling with laughter at my version of the story. Thinking about the teacher’s face now as an adult, I’m still laughing. She was completely horrified.
The image of a six-year-old dragging a jug of wine to his room is pretty funny … okay, and a little horrifying.
Thanks for the laugh, Tom! Those are the stories that go down in family history. 🙂
You mentioned that you don’t do low-carb on holidays like this. I totally agree with that! But, do you still enjoy the pumpkin or pecan pies or other sweets? I find that after not eating many sweets (a little dark chocolate now and then…can’t seem to break that habit) that things I used to like are now egregiously sweet. Just the other day as a test, I tried to eat an animal cracker – pretty low on the totem pole of sweetness – and it tasted horrible to me.
Just curious if you and others have experienced a change in your taste-buds and preferences after eating better for a while.
So at the start of the season, a happy holiday to you and all your readers!
I ate a small bit of pie, but sweets don’t appeal to me much. They didn’t even before I went low-carb. By the time I was a teen, I recognized that sugary desserts or sodas made me feel awful afterwards.
K
This reminds me of an Easter at my Aunt and Uncle’s house when I was little. My 6 yr old cousin discovered that wine tasted pretty good and my oldest brother and a cousin thought it would be funny to indulge him. My parents finally caught the 6 yr old trying to drag a 1 gallon jug of wine up the stairs to his room. By the time we left for the evening I could hear him crying over how sick he was. My brother got it pretty good from mom and dad when we got home. The funny part about it is when my fifth grade teacher asked the class for our holiday stories the next week. I raised my hand and soon had all the other kids rolling with laughter at my version of the story. Thinking about the teacher’s face now as an adult, I’m still laughing. She was completely horrified.
The image of a six-year-old dragging a jug of wine to his room is pretty funny … okay, and a little horrifying.
I made homemade cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving. I used a bag of cranberries, 1c of fresh-squeezed orange juice from the oranges on my trees in the backyard, about 1/2c of frozen blueberries, a few packets of Truvia, and a packet of unflavored Knox gelatin. It turned out really delicious, although next time I would probably put in even more blueberries.
I really wanted to find some Paleo bread and make stuffing with it. I will have to try making your bread recipe and then making sausage stuffing with it.
I made homemade cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving. I used a bag of cranberries, 1c of fresh-squeezed orange juice from the oranges on my trees in the backyard, about 1/2c of frozen blueberries, a few packets of Truvia, and a packet of unflavored Knox gelatin. It turned out really delicious, although next time I would probably put in even more blueberries.
I really wanted to find some Paleo bread and make stuffing with it. I will have to try making your bread recipe and then making sausage stuffing with it.