Cranberries are the unsung heroes of holiday meals in my opinion. With sooooo many other really uber-rich dishes at the table, it’s the cranberry sauce that give your taste buds a break and brightens up the meal. It’s just like me – tart, with a touch of sweetness. (Alright, so maybe I’m more tart than sweet, but who’s keeping tabs?!?) For our pre-holiday feast, I made a fresh cranberry, persimmon and rosemary sauce. The addition of rosemary to the sauce added just the right hint of herbiness to really play well with the herb roasted turkey breast. As everybody knows, turkey and cranberry are BFF, just like me and pork fat.

Rather than having two cranberry sauces at the feast, Nicole made a cranberry applesauce with ginger. While I can’t say that apple sauce was ever a traditional holiday dish for for my family, I do love a good homemade apple sauce and the addition of the cranberries and ginger really set this one off. All and all I would say that we ate damn well at our pre-holiday feast. Geez, maybe we at too well… now the actual Turkey Day is going to have a lot to live up to!

*In case anyone hasn’t been to What We’re Eating in a while, this is part of a special Holiday series featuring recipes that Nicole, from Pinch My Salt, Tyler and I cooked and feasted on together! Here’s a list of all the dishes:

Stuffed Sweet Potatoes Wrapped in Prosciutto
Extra Creamy Mashed Potato Casserole
Sweet Potato Buttermilk Rolls
Herb Roasted Turkey Breast
Sourdough, Bacon & Apple Stuffing
Cornbread and Sausage Stuffing
Cranberry Applesauce w/ Ginger
Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Rosemary and Persimmon (you’re reading it!)

Recipes in this post:

• Cranberry Sauce w/ Rosemary and Persimmons

Related posts:

1. Kickass Mexican Chorizo Cornbread Stuffing
2. Butternut Squash Succotash w/ Sage Brown Butter
3. Holiday Recipes: Chipotle Cumin Cranberry Sauce