cranberry relish and a life lesson

So I'm just going to get right to the point and tell you that what I'm about to share is the literal BEST thing you will ever eat at Thanksgiving. 

Also maybe in your entire life.

I give you my mom's most famous and delicious holiday recipe:

CRANBERRY RELISH

• INGREDIENTS
• 2 cups fresh or defrosted frozen cranberries
• 1/4 cup diced red onion
• 1 large jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 2 blood oranges, or navel oranges, peeled, sectioned, and cut into 1/4-inch pieces, juices reserved
• 2 teaspoons freshly grated ginger
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 stalks celery, peeled to remove strings, cut in 1/4-inch dice
• 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, coarsely chopped
• 
  

DIRECTIONS

1. Place cranberries in food processor, and pulse to chop coarsely, about five pulses. Transfer to a medium bowl.
2. Add onion, jalapeno, lime juice, orange sections and juice, ginger, sugar, and celery; mix gently. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour and up to 2 days. Just before serving, add mint and toss to combine.

I doubled the recipe, and it fed about 25 people, with leftovers.

(So Christian and I could eat spoonful after spoonful, of course!)

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And now I have some words of wisdom to impart.

Notice how the recipe calls for jalapenos.

Well this girl doesn't work with those bad boys enough to remember not to touch the seeds.

So there I am, ripping them out with my bare fingers, and COUGHING because the peppers were so hot that they were asphyxiating me.

And about 20 minutes later, I'm like:

"MOTHER THERESA! THERE MUST BE LITERAL LAVA COMING OUT MY FINGERTIPS BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE I AM GOING TO DIE!"

Seriously I started crying.

(Christian doesn't know this because he was at the grocery store. So there you go.

The embarassment is out)

So then he gets home and I'm all:

"I NEED A REMEDY IN ABOUT 10 SECONDS BECAUSE SATAN IS NOW LIVING IN MY FINGERS!"

So I tried washing my hands about 20 times.

(Which only made it horrifically worse)

Then I tried rubbing lime juice all over my fingers, which helped for a hot *pun intended* 4 seconds.

Then I tried SOAKING my fingers in the lime juice, which only helped for a slightly longer period.

Then I tried using rubbing alcohol, which failed miserably.

Then I resorted to soaking my fingers in milk, and thankfully it worked some amazing magic.

And THEN, I mixed the lime juice with the milk, which turned it into a bad version of sour cream and it was unbelievably gross because it was sort of sticking to my fingers, but it was nice because then I didn't have to just leave my fingers sitting in a bowl of milk. 

Which is like my worst nightmare because I ABHOR milk.

And so, about 3 hours, 2 tylenol, lots of grumpies, and 1/4 gallon of milk later, the pain was finally subsiding.

And I went to bed with wrinkly milk-soaked fingers that smelled like I had been eating mexican food and ice cream for a week straight.

NOT A GOOD COMBINATION.

Lesson?

Next time, wear gloves.