I use an old-fashioned hand food grinder, and grind raw berries with cut-up apples (peeled) and oranges (not peeled), then add sugar to make a raw relish. Sometimes I add some ground cardamom and cloves to deepen the flavor. We also usually make a batch of the package-recipe cooked sauce, to which some orange zest and/or liqueur may or may not have been added.
Canned whole-berry cranberry sauce is fine in a pinch. Nothing really wrong with it.
We used canned until a couple years ago when someone on here inspired the change. I use:
1 bag of cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup orange juice
Heat, stir, yum.
I do homemade jellied. The recipe http://www.latimes.com/la-fo-th2-eachdish-cranberry-story.html makes an enormous amount; I now make a mere 1/3 of the recipe, which is about two cans worth but tastes much much better. Itās more work than whole berry sauce, because you have to strain the cooked berries before cooking the skin-free puree with sugar, but imo itās worth it.
I make individual frozen dinners for my kids to take back home with them after the holidays. I am not much of a cook but they seem to like it:
Samās Club Rotisserie Chicken meat
Chicken flavored stove top stuffing - prepared
Sweet potatoes mashed w/butter/brown sugar
Canned whole berry cranberry sauce on top of the chicken meat to keep it moist
@MomofJandL -I made the cranberry apple crumble thing tonight and it was a big hit. Served it with vanilla ice cream. Inlaws loved it.
My easy cranberry sauce: 1 12 oz bag of cranberries, picked over and washed; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 cup tangerine or orange juice; 1/2 tsp vanilla
Boil cranberries with sugar and juice for about 10 minutes, or until cranberries are soft. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Keeps in fridge for about 2 weeks.
āI made Mama Stambergās cranberry relish one year, but no one liked it.ā
I make Mama Stambergās but for Hanukkah not for Thanksgiving.
Made my cranberry sauce today. Water, sugar (but way less then the recipe calls for) boil. Then I just add clementines and chill.
goofed on mine by adding a dash of vanilla. I managed to correct it with more orange and such.
It has a slight floral taste that I think other will like but I like mine on the tart savory side.
I looked at pin interest and found a cranberry margarita where you use the cranberry sauceāH
thinks it sounds awful.
My mommy makes me cranberry sauce and blueberry crisp. She made them today for tomorrow and I ~ahem~ ātestedā them both after she went to bed.
Will I pay for this in the morning? Yes. Do I have regrets? None! They were both delicious. O:-)
Forgot to make the cranberry sauce earlier, so I just finished the standard - bag of cranberries, sugar, water and I throw in a stick of cinnamon and boil. Sometimes I add apples to that mix, but Iām out!
Father managed to screw up even worse than me this morning. Iām in the clear! :D/
I like to adapt the āstandardā homemade recipe to use brown sugar, a bit of honey, plus lime juice and jalapeno. I also push it through an old-fashioned food mill afterward because I like the smoother texture (and that way, I can also put in some of the whole-lime i.e. peel for its flavor). It always gets eaten! I will say that although the recipes are āeasyā - they can make an awful mess on the stove as the berries pop, even with a cover on the pot. My mother used to make it in the microwave oven sometimes, I think. (Also a mess.)
Well I did make the cranberry sauce with sugar, fresh squeezed orange juice and fresh grated ginger - a day late, but everyone love it as a spread for the day after turkey sandwiches! @fretfulmother mine was a bit messy too, but i just kept it on low and stirred often, seemed to help!
Sounds good, @Fishnlines29! I think maybe my stove heat was too high this year.
I use a very tall pot with the cranberries etc. filling less than 1/3 of it; this way, all splatters land on the inside walls of the pot. 
I make mine with sugar, lemon zest and mint. Yumā¦
My mom made a double batch of her cranberry sauce. Very few people ate it so I got most of the batch to myself.
I am still eating it. I am a happy camper.
I think she just makes it with the sugar, water, and cranberries. If I learn how to make it, she might stopā¦ so Iām just going to stay ignorant 
We love our sauce, found in a magazine years ago. OJ, orange zest, sugar, cooked with diced bosc pears. A bit less tart though has great depth of flavor. We especially love it for latkes.
One irritation, is that the recipe calls for a pound of cranberries. The package is 12 oz, and am guessing the standard bag size was decreased at some point in the past. So I made 3/4 of a recipe.
We go for the fresh preparation with apples, pears, or oranges and the required spices. None of us like it. We just prepare it to complete the meal and look nice on the table. A few souls will take a tiny spoonful, then itās in the trash or down the drain after the meal. Seems like a waste, but we do it year after year. (Iād do the same with the pumpkin pie, but one member of our family likes it, so at least half the pie gets eaten in the days following before itās time to dump.)
Edit: Hubby hates turkey. This thread is making me re-think Thanksgiving. We should probably revisit our entire menu.
Go for it, @ChoatieMom ! We gave up turkey at Thanksgiving years ago. If steak and lobster make your heart feel more gratitude, thatās what you should have. Shrimp creole, maple glazed salmonā¦so many good foods out there to share with the ones you love. We added some vegan dishes this year, and altered a family favorite recipe for a severely lactose intolerant guest. A special family meal should feel special to everyone.