In this live Thanksgiving‑morning stream, Leigh Thomas Brown re‑launches her cooking series “My Kitchen, My Rules” to share a quick, no‑fuss cranberry sauce recipe that she calls her holiday tradition. She opens with a friendly greeting, explains why she’s back on the channel after a COVID‑era hiatus, and mentions her local shopping habits (Lowe’s Foods, Trader Joe’s). The core of the stream is a step‑by‑step demonstration of a simple cranberry sauce made with fresh cranberries, apple juice or cider, sugar (Dixie Crystals), and a honey‑flavored whiskey that adds adult flavor but cooks off, making it safe for kids. Leigh walks through measuring, heating, stirring, adjusting sweetness, and simmering until the berries burst, offering practical tips such as using fresh versus frozen berries, adjusting liquid for desired consistency, and the importance of letting the alcohol evaporate. While the sauce simmers, she outlines her Thanksgiving menu—mashed potatoes, macaroni, green beans, brined turkey, rolls from her cousin, sweet potatoes from her mother‑in‑law—and shares wishes for a peaceful, device‑free family gathering, a parade, and football. The stream blends cooking instruction, personal anecdotes, and holiday cheer, targeting beginners, lazy cooks, and anyone who needs a quick cranberry side.
Chapters
Happy Thanksgiving! And let me adjust my angle there because, you know, I'm just barely getting started here because I got so many things to make today. Let's see, I don't have any viewers yet, so I think I'll ramble for just a second while people get logged in. And this is sitting on the volume, so let me fix my camera here. Obviously today is going to be Thanksgiving awesomeness. All right. Are we live? We're live! Good morning, friends. I'm Leigh Thomas Brown, if you've never met, and welcome to My Kitchen, My Rules, which used to be my cooking show during the COVID and I haven't done it in a while because frankly, I ran out of recipes because I cooked the same things over and over like many of you. And of course, one of the things I make over and over is for today, for Thanksgiving Day, and anytime we have cranberries in the grocery store. So if you are not a cook, this is a recipe for you. If you are lazy, this is a recipe for you. If you totally forgot to make something, this recipe is for you, because at least here in North Carolina, Lowe's Foods is open till 4 o'clock, and I like to shop at locally owned places, and they're owned out of Clemmons, so they count. So let me tell y'all what you need to make the best cranberries ever. You need a bag of cranberries. These came from Trader Joe's. They also have them at every grocery store right now. Spoiler alert, you got to use the fresh ones because if they're frozen, it changes up the liquid. You need some kind of apple juice, apple cider. It can be sparkling, not sparkling, whatever, whatever apple you have. You could juice one, but that means it's really dead and gross. So this one is from Trader Joe's. You need sugar because obviously you can control it. And as y'all know, I use Dixie Crystals, but did y'all know they got bought by a hedge fund, which is very horrifying to me, but here we are. And of course, the secret ingredient to these amazing cranberries is any kind of honey whiskey, whether it is the Jim Beam honey, Jack Daniel's honey, the off-brand honey, doesn't matter. Just get something honey flavored. And I think you could probably use any brown liquor you want and put a tablespoon of honey in. I've never tried it because that adds an ingredient and I got to keep it easy here. So what you're going to do is the easiest recipe ever. So you're going to get your saucepan or Actually, I'll put it right here on the side burner because it's going to have to sit for a second. We'll put that on a nice medium heat, and then here's what we're going to do. We're going to open up this bag of cranberries, right? So easy, so doable. And yes, you can rinse them first, and no, I don't rinse them first because I don't want to, and it's Thanksgiving and everything happens in my kitchen, so my kitchen, my rules. Plus the alcohol burns off anything that could have been in there. So let's just be honest, you need a cup of apple juice. So I'm just going to open this up, get my measuring cup here, put in a cup of apple juice. And you could also put in a little bit more. All right, remember, you're on a medium heat, and now it's just going to start sitting. And then we need to put in some sugar. The amount that you put in depends on you and how much your family likes the tart versus the Sweet, because these cranberries, y'all, are good enough to eat straight out of the pan. They're also great on a sidecar sandwich when Thanksgiving is over. They're good on everything. And I'm not even joking, if you don't like cranberries because you ate them out of a can with that little sad jelly and little lines on the side, this is not even the same thing. So you've been judging incorrectly. I'm gonna put in a little more than a half a cup of sugar, of course. The recipe that I officially found the first time called for a cup, but that was too sweet for me. So I'm gonna do-ish about 3/4 of a cup of sugar, 'cause that's a gracious plenty. Let's go ahead and stir that a little bit and make sure we've got enough liquid in there. So now if you like your cranberries a little bit looser, you put in more apple juice. If you want 'em a little bit stiffer, then you can put in less. But regardless, you get to let it sit on the stove and reduce down. And now we're going to put in some adult beverage. The official recipe calls for a cup, so where did I do my measuring cup? Here we go. So we could put in about a cup and then— oh snap! Okay, normally I put in a little more than a cup, but apparently I did not measure my bottle beforehand. And because my preacher might watch, I'm not going to drink alcohol straight out of the bottle because I'm classy like that. But you can obviously mix that up a little bit. And yes, your kids can still eat this even if they are underage and not admitting that they drink, because the alcohol will burn off. And then what you're going to do, y'all, is you're going to let it sit on that medium heat. It's going to get hot enough to where the cranberries start to burst in, and once they start to burst in, let it go for a little while so that they can all open up. Then you're going to cut your heat all the way down to simmer and let it sit while you fix everything else. And so in my house, that means I'll next do the mashed potatoes and then we'll do the macaroni and the green beans. And the turkey's already been in the brine, so it'll go in the oven here in a little bit. My cousin Ann is bringing some rolls, and then my mother-in-law was bringing the sweet potatoes. And we're just going to have a very nice holiday together with no argument and no fussing. We're going to eat and turn all of our devices off. So I wish for everybody out there a wonderful Thanksgiving. I wish for you that your family won't fuss and fight today, and that you too will turn all the devices off except for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which is on right now with excerpts from musicals that I have no desire to watch. But really, I'm just looking for the marching bands later, and then we're gonna watch some football. We'll watch the Cowboys and the Indians. It'll be a good time, and I hope you all have a wonderful
