Mince Pies

Christmas treats were overflowing at our house this year. Shortbread, spritz cookies, caramel corn, pastries, cakes....and mince pies. I was introduced to mince pies and all sorts of other English treats when I met D, and have been eating them every Christmas since. His sister makes them every year, and when we visit Deep River we always look for the green tin (that's where they live) and sneak as many mince pies as we can throughout the day without being noticed. And then have a few more at tea time with everyone else. Did I mention they are delicious?

Since we didn't travel this year, there was no magic green tin of mince pies. So I emailed D's sister and got some instructions on how to make my own. Mince pies are little pies filled with a mincemeat - a mixture of chopped dried fruits (raisins, currants, apples), sugar, spices and traditionally, some sort of suet/fat. Mincemeat may have originally been made with meat, but these days the meat component is probably limited to suet. You can make mincemeat from scratch, or you can buy it pre-made in a jar - mine was a store-bought vegetarian kind. If you go online looking for mince pie recipes, you'll find that a lot of people seem to add extra chopped cooked apples and liquor to spiff up their fillings. I just used it straight from the jar. I'm not exactly a mince pie connoisseur, but I thought they tasted pretty good.


For the pastry, I just used the basic pie crust recipe on the back of a box of Crisco, except that I used a bit of butter instead of all shortening. Each pie was made from a 2" circle of rolled dough, topped with a star cut-out. I made them in a little cupcake pan, but if you are a serious mince pie maker there are special tins you can buy.

As for updates, I think my backlog of blog stuff is dwindling. I only have a couple more things to post about...a few little knitting projects I just finished up. My crafting to-do list includes some curtains (boring) and working on a quilt. D's been working a lot, and I've been volunteering. Plus we've had to run around getting all sorts of errands done. We had to get our chimney flashed because there was a leak. We had to get medical exams for our permanent residency application. This Saturday, we are hosting a book club (The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon...very gripping and beautifully written...) and I am cooking a gluten-free vegan dinner for that. Tonight we're having dinner at my volunteer boss' house.

Oh! We also went on our hospital tour of the birthing centre...the facilities were really nice, the staff seem great, and the program itself seems quite progressive and they offer lots of support to new families. Yay!

That's all for now!

A Nice Apple Pie

Fall brings out a different kind of sweet tooth in me. Canadian thanksgiving was a couple weeks back and we didn't have the usual treats, so I made a pumpkin cranberry bread to satisfy that pumpkin craving. Um, it was all gone before the evidence could be photographed for blogging.

But I did save some pie for you. A double-crust traditional apple pie!

I'd been talking about making pie for ages, but every time I got too lazy and decided that making the crust was way too much work and opted for apple crumble or apple tarts on pre-made puff pastry. However, D just returned from a conference and I was in the right kind of mood, so I made this as a (large) treat for us.

The recipe is from Gourmet magazine, which sadly announced that is was shutting down this week. Boo! I was thinking of getting a subscription, too. So sad. Anyhow, here's the recipe for the pastry, and here's the recipe for the filling. I subbed a half cup of whole wheat flour in the crust, and used Macs and Galas for the filling. Since I didn't have any vegetable shortening on hand, I just put in all butter. My crust was flaky and tasty, but not super light, which is probably because of the WW flour and lack of shortening, although I kind of liked the texture. Macs release a lot of juice, so beware of hot sputtering apple goo if you cut into the pie before it's had a chance to cool!

After it came out of the oven, we each had a slice. I woke up at 4am needing another piece (the baby convinced me to have it). It is taking everything in me not to substitute the pie for regular meals, but as a result there is still some left. Oh, and this makes a very big pie - I used a 9.5 inch plate and we've had about 9 slices out of it so far, and there's still two left for a midnight snack.