Cranberry Orange Nut Salad (Grandma's)

"When my grandma was still cooking Thanksgiving dinner I always remember this, so I've picked up the ball and now I'm the one making it. Even people who don't normally want cranberry love this. I use the old fashioned metal, clamp to the edge of the counter, type of grinder to grind the cranberries, but you can use something else, perhaps a food processor. However, I do not recommend using a food processor or other type of chopper for the nuts, or celery as the quality and texture is better when they are hand chopped. When you use the orange peel (zest) make sure you are only using the orange part of the peel, and not any of the white (it's very bitter). When the cranberries are in season around Thanksgiving, I usually buy a couple of extra bags and freeze them so that I can make this anytime of year. This is great for brunches, luncheons, or in the summer, to take along to potlucks or picnics as well, it's so refreshing. You could also add a nice white wine (maybe about 1/2 cup)."
 
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Ready In:
24hrs
Ingredients:
7
Serves:
6-10
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ingredients

  • 2 cups cranberries (1 12 oz package)
  • 1 (3 ounce) package lemon Jell-O gelatin
  • 1 orange (peel, pulp, juice, but no white from peel)
  • 1 12 cups sugar
  • 1 cup chopped celery
  • 1 cup chopped pecans (walnuts work well too)
  • 14 - 12 cup white wine, Zinfandel (or a nice fruity German Wine) (optional)
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directions

  • Wash, then grind the cranberries.
  • Wash, zest & juice the orange, using as much pulp as you can gather (but remember, no white from the peel).
  • Chop the celery.
  • Mix cranberries, orange parts, sugar & celery, (add half of the wine now if you're using it).
  • Refrigerate covered, overnight if possible (it is really not as good if you don't).
  • The next day:

  • Chop the nuts.
  • Make lemon Jello according to package directions, but only use 1/2 of the water that the package calls for, let partially set.
  • Add cranberry mixture from previous day & nuts.
  • If you are using wine, add the rest of it now.
  • Transfer into appropriate serving bowl, I prefer pretty glass or crystal, especially for the holidays, (I usually use a pretty glass bowl that has a lid).
  • Refrigerate covered (minimum of 2 hours or so) or until set.
  • I often double this recipe, when I do this, I use 1 package of lemon Jello, & 1 package of orange Jello, or 2 packages of one or the other, and 2- 12 oz packages of cranberries, not quite doubling the rest of the ingredients.
  • And finally, say a quick thanks & smile up at heaven to my Grandma Thelma, who passed away this year.

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Reviews

  1. THis was SOO SOO GOOD! Like you said. Even people who don't like traditional canned cranberries loved this dish. My aunt was visiting from Chicago and said she was famous for her cranberry relish reciepe. Well after Thanksgiving dinner at my house, she asked me for the reciepe! Oh And the white zinfadel wine really added the extra zing it needed to go from good to great! Thanks so Much for this reciepe! Will use this every year from now on.
     
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY

**Please if you find my recipe through another site and try it, please return here and give it a rating, please!! :o) I love cooking, and have for as long as I can remember, (of course it goes with-out saying that I also love to eat). I guess I come by it honestly, as the majority of cooking I learned from Grandma, & my Dad (who learned from her). My Dear Grandma just passed away this past week (7/16/08), I have a few of her recipes posted on here, I hope people are inspired to try her Lead Cake & Cranberry Salad in her honor. I wish I had more of her recipes to share here, but those were my 2 favorites, which is why I made sure I had at least as those 2 recipes years ago. I was just recently showing my 13 yo son the first recipes that I ever created and wrote down, my first when I was approx. 8. My son loves to cook as well, so he also created a profile on here as well, (fawndog, don't ask me what it's supposed to mean lol) and has had fun posting recipes, particularly from an authentic civil war cookbook that we have. I am more of a "dump cook" rarely measuring, so I have had to start paying more attention to amounts and steps in case I create something I want to post on here. My family calls me the "Condiment Queen" since my refrigerator is mostly full of condiments, I would actually be embarrassed if I counted how many bottles & jars I have, & actually admitted it! Is there such a thing as condiment addiction? I wonder. Anyway, I love to use my variety of condiments when I cook, which I sometimes find difficult when sharing recipes on here, because many of the things I use are obscure, gourmet, & hard to find, because of this, some of my best recipes I don't feel I can even put on here. My recipes range from complicated, unusual ingredients, to pleasantly understated & simple, (kind of like me when I think about it) & could even be said to be closer to ideas, then even recipes lol. I love to make jelly, I have recently discovered that I Can bake, and have always appreciated spices, it took me a lot of years to realize more isn't Always better lol, (although my spice cabinet is also an entire kitchen cupboard so maybe I haven't learned that). I have probably created thousands of recipes as I have cooked over the years, but have not formally documented them, until now. The only time I follow a recipe exactly with-out messing around with it, is on here, so I can give fair reviews, if I do change things I try to be specific about what I changed. I hope you enjoy my recipes, if you have any requests, I have a fairly large collection of cookbooks from all over the country as I have inherited family member's cookbooks who traveled a lot. (Although, with the internet, you can find most anything now-a-days anyway). I find that I am really enjoying "Zaar", what a great community of people, it's fun to share recipes, see what ideas people come up with when adapting to suit their tastes, and of course getting reviews makes it even more fun. Although my pet peeve on here is when people give a lower rating when they seem to like the recipe with no explanation of why, OR change something in the recipe and then give it a low rating, duh! Please if you run across my recipes and try them, but aren't a member, please come back and sign-up real quick and leave me a review! :o) Please visit my web-site to find out more about me & what I "do" lol. http://www.LightBeyondTheVeil.com <img src="http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b399/susied214/permanent%20collection/adoptedspring08.jpg">
 
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