What I Ate Today

Only one month to go!  This weekend we had a bit of a mad Christmas baking session, we made quince mince pies, ginger and pineapple Christmas cake and the biggest Christmas pudding I’ve ever seen! The recipe for the mince pies is below and Paul will add the recipes for the other two later.

Quince mince pies

When I told my mother about putting quince in mince meat she said ‘well that’s not very traditional’, I pointed out if we were having traditional mince pies they would have beef in them and that a little bit of seasonal exploration never did anyone any harm.  I am loving quinces at the moment, they must be one of the few fruit left that you really can only get for one month in a year.  The recipe is from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess, which has to be one of my favourite cook books of all time.

• 500g quinces (which is about two)
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 125g each sultanas, raisins and dried apricots
• 125g light muscovado sugar
• 125g vegtable sugar
• 1 teaspoon each ground cardomon, cloves and cinnamon
• 50g crystalised peel
• 50 ml brandy (Nigella suggests various other expensive sounding liqueurs, but I never think its worth it for one recipe)

Heat the overn to 150C, peal the quinces and cut them into wedges, coat them in butter and roast in the oven until tender.  When they are done leave them to cool, then cut into mince meat size chunks and put them into a bowl with all the other ingredients, give it a stir and stick the mixture into clean jars (or make it straight into little pies like I did).