It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Hi folks, yesterday I made my mincemeat; the kitchen looked like a culinary bombsite. It is very fruity, full of dried fruit, sultanas, raisins, currants, dried peel, dried apricots, orange peel, lemon peel, apples, lemon and orange juice, and a small bottle of brandy, plus some cinnamon. I make a huge bowl full, and put some away for the following year, when it has a very full bodied flavour! By the way, I use vegetarian suet.

Today, I made my mince pies, I normally like to have a bigger gap between making the mincemeat, and the mince pies, but time is running short. I added fresh cranberries to the mincemeat, and made a crumble topping for the pies. I don't make my own pastry, however, if I added the wet ingredients to the crumble topping, it would become pastry, so I am capable, just realistic about the time that I have.

I made four dozen today, and will make some more tomorrow, and get some in the freezer, as they disappear fast around here.

I had mentioned to my friend Elaine that I was adding cranberries to my mincemeat, and she gave me a link to a really cool website http://somefiddlingonthekitchentable.blogspot.com/2010/12/cranberries.html where the blog owner had stamped the background of her card with real cranberries. I do follow this blog anyway, but had been too busy to pop over and take a look. Anyway, I decided to have a go, as I loved the effect, and this is what I made, using cranberry and raisin Adirondack inks, well it would have to be, wouldn't it!

I think that I will have to make some more of these, as the design is lovely. I hope that you are all getting on well with your Christmas preparations, better than me anyway! Megan comes home at the weekend, which will be lovely, hopefully there will be some mince pies left for her.......

Anyway, thanks for popping by, Judith xx