Thanksgiving at our house pt 2

The rest of our completely non-traditional Thanksgiving holiday involved me getting up and going to work while My Mom, Kris, Miss Lu and Mr. Man went to IHOP for brunch then spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon in the Hotel Pool. After work Mom took us out to dinner (very nice Italian) and like the Godless heathens that have become this holiday none of us ordered the turkey and stuffing.

After dinner we went back to the pool, that is the way to spend a holiday, it only would have been better with a pool side bar. We live near Schaumburg IL, a Chicago suburb and maybe the shopping capitol of the Midwest. Schaumburg's website boasts 92,000,000 square feet of shopping space. I was surprised by how many people we met at the hotel that were traveling the area to start their Christmas Shopping. There were a couple of families here from Indiana to "get the door buster deals" and another family that was going to the American Girl Place down town. More power to them, I just want to avoid the malls and shopping centers today.

Anyway this mindless rambling isn't what this post is about I wanted to brag about the Cranberries I made for Wednesday's non Thanksgiving dinner. I will post or link this around Christmas too since no one will eat the sour little fruit between now and then.

Brown Sugar Bourbon Cranberry Sauce:

1 12 oz Package of Fresh Cranberries

1 tsp grated Orange Peel

1 Cup lightly packed Brown Sugar

Juice from one Orange

3/4 cup Bourbon

Splash of Triple Sec

Cook all ingredients together at a very light simmer for about 15 minutes stirring often until cranberries have popped and sugars break down. Put in the refrigerator uncovered for at least a couple of hours or overnight. The slow simmering does remove some of the alcohol but by no means does it come even close to evaporating so this is not the dish for your kids (though you may want to give some to your cousin's brats) or recovering alcoholics. However once you taste it you won't want to share anyway. The leftovers are all that I am planning to have for dinner tonight. By the way we were still haveing fun with the flowers.