Gourmets 50 Most Influential Women in Food # 24 Paula Deen--Wayne's Cranberry Sauce

Paula's Cranberry Sauce

This weeks one of 50 is Paula Deen. Restauranteur, cookbook author, and Food Network star! ! She is # 24 on Gourmets list of the 50 Most Influential Women in food. 
Paula Deen happens to be one of my favorite celebrity cooks. Watching her is like being in the kitchen with a good friend.  Even though I own several of her cookbooks, most of what she cooks is not the kind of food that a nice Mediterranean girl feels comfortable feeding her family. She cooks very southern...very high in fat! Everything she makes looks luscious, however the fat content has to be high enough to set off alarms!
Paula Deen married very young and had two sons. She suffered from panic attacks and agoraphobia, eventually becoming housebound. During this time she focused on cooking for her family. Something she could do without leaving her house. In 1986, she took a job in a bank as a teller. After that she and her sons moved to Savannah, where in 1989 she divorced her husband. Paula, needing to support her sons and herself, started making sandwiches, bagging them in lunch bags, then sending her sons down town to sell them. It was the birth of her catering business "The Bag Lady".  She soon needed a bigger space so in 1996, Deen opened her own restaurant in downtown Savannah called "The Lady and Sons". Within a few years, she moved her restaurant to a larger building in Savannah's historic district. The specialty being the buffet which includes sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, deep fried Twinkies, fried chicken and so on and so forth.  I've visited her store front, wanting to have some lunch there, but the line wrapped around the block. Maybe next time I'm in Savannah I will have that pleasure. 
Paula has self-published two cookbooks "The Lady and Sons" and "The Lady and Sons Too".  Then in 1999 she began her relationship with the Food Network. She has since published several more books and has become a fixture at the Food Network. 
Because it's Thanksgiving week I chose to make Wayne's Cranberry Sauce  from her book "Lady and Sons, Too".  This was delicious and may become my new "go to" recipe when I make cranberry sauce. 
Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Eat merry and enjoy!

Everything in the pot simmering

This is a lovely cranberry sauce, with wonderful flavor

I'm sure everyone at my table will enjoy it!

Wayne's Cranberry Sauce
Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 (16-ounce) bag fresh cranberries
• 1 cup chopped apple
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup Grand Marnier
• 1/2 orange, juiced
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated

Directions

Combine the sugar and water in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the cranberries and return to a boil, then lower the heat so that the liquid simmers. Add the apples, walnuts, raisins, Grand Marnier, orange and lemon juices, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and cook for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and let the sauce cool.

Serve in a side bowl with turkey or any preferred holiday dish. 


Thanks to Mary of One Perfect Bite for this wonderful challenge. These other bloggers are also featuring the recipes of Paula Deen. Hope you'll check them out. They are all very talented ladies.

Mary - One Perfect Bite 

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living 
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Kathleen -Bake Away with Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Barbara - Movable Feasts
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Amy - Beloved Green
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda 
Linda A - There and Back Again
Martha - Lines from Linderhof
Nancy - Picadillo
Mireya - My Healthy Eating Habits,
Veronica - My Catholic Kitchen

Annie- Most Lovely Things