Apples, again! Make your own mincemeat for Christmas mince pies :-)

We love Christmas cake, mince pies, Christmas pudings and anything full of fruits, so tasty:-)

Another good use for the windfall apples, and less than pretty ones, is to make your own mincemeat - ready for baking those mince pies that will permeate the whole house with heady scents of fruit and spices.

This is another really simple recipe, so you have no excuse not to try it.

I took:

400g grated cooking apples
100g margarine
300g raisins

300g sultanas

300g chopped dates

200g unrefined sugar
half a teaspoon each of cinnamon, mixed spice, nutmeg and cumin
2 lemons, zest and juice
4 tblsps fresh orange juice

60ml brandy

 

Toss everything, except the brandy, into a large ovenproof dish and stir thoroughly. I use a dessert spoon to measure out the margarine, and you don't need try to break it down into tiny pieces, it's going to melt to make your life easier!

grated zest

dried fruit

I grated the apple straight onto the lemon zest and juice



I used a spoon to measure out the margarine



roughly stir everything together

Place in the centre of an oven pre-heated to 115C for a fan oven, 120C, 250F or gas mark 1/2 for half an hour. Remove from the oven and give it a really good stir to mix everything. The margarine should be very soft and creamy now, and stirring well helps to coat everything with a fine coating of fat which helps it to keep.

place back in the oven

Replace in the oven for a further half an hour, then remove, stir again and allow to cool before adding in the brandy. Stir again then decant into containers and store in the fridge.



after an hour it will look like this



when it's cool, stir in the brandy

I admit to enjoying a spoonful in with my fruit smoothies at breakfast sometimes, on those grey, rainy days when I feel the need for more "comfort" food :-)

Raspberry Vodka

Last summer I came across a raspberry vodka in my local Aldi supermarket.  Now, as far as I'm concerned, raspberries are the epitome of summer.

Strawberries used to hold this hallowed position, but nowadays they do seem to be largely grown for size, not flavour, so for some years now, raspberries have reigned supreme.  (I must just take a second to say that the alpine strawberries I grow are still really flavoursome, it's the bog-standard strawberries I object to.)

So, when I caught sight of these reddish pink bottles, I simply had to buy one to taste it - I forgot to mention that I also enjoy vodka - a Harvey Wallbanger being one of my very favouritest drinks of all time:-)

I made a return visit to the store the next day to stock up on a few bottles, as it was one of the most delightful drinks I'd had in a long time.

Sadly, it's all but gone now, but the other day I was given four punnets of raspberries and a lightbulb illuminated in my head - I could try to create my own raspberry vodka!!!

I went to my secret stash of bottles and dusted off a new half litre bottle of vodka and began my experiment.  Vodka, rasperries and a tub of vanilla sugar.  I make my own, as you can see, by storing a couple of vanilla pods in a tub of unrefined granulated sugar, yummy.

I weighed out 150gms of raspberries and 100gms sugar into a glass bowl.

I pulverised the raspberries with the sugar until I got this lovely, rosy mush.

I poured in the whole bottle of vodka, not one drop of it passed my lips, honest!  I used Lidl's best vodka.

I allowed the mixture to stand for a week, tightly covered with cling-film (didn't want any alcohol to evaporate, did I?)  Then carefully ladled the pink liquid back into the vodka bottle through a strainer.

The weird muck in the bowl is the remains of the poor raspberries, which kindly gave up their colour to the vodka.  I'll mix it into a cake batter, or something, it would be silly to waste the fibre and the vodka absorbed in it, wouldn't it?

The resulting drink is delicious.  It's not as deep a colour as the shop-bought article, but they probably added beetroot juice to add some depth to theirs for consumer eye-appeal.  I don't think mine is quite as sweet as theirs, either, but that's ok, this was a trial.  I'll happily make more:-)

Oh, and there was too much liquid to fit back in the bottle, so I'll just have to drink it this evening, as I don't have another bottle free to pour it in to.  Life is so hard sometimes:-)  Cheers!

electricity, gas, money saving

Talking of electricity reminds me to mention that I've finally taken notice of the money saving e-mails that I subscribe to, and have taken action to save myself some money on my gas and electricity charges.

I currently have dual fuel supplied by Atlantic, and pay quarterly by direct debit. As with everyone else in the UK, my bills have risen due to the increase in the price of oil.

I took out my bills for the last year, totted them up and decided now was the time to seek a way to save some money. I'd swapped to Atlantic about 3 years ago for the same reason, and saved some then.

I used a couple of comparison sites, and found that if I switched to Eon for the dual fuel, and paid monthly direct debits, I could save, on their guesstimate, based on the yearly amounts I'd paid to Atlantic, about £140+ per annum!!!

Presumably they are very confident about this, as the direct debits they will be taking will result in me paying considerably less over the year than I paid last year. Fingers crossed their calculations are correct!

I've also, just this last week, had cavity wall insulation installed. The whole process took about two hours, for the drilling and pumping, and wasn't nearly as noisy as I had feared it would be. The boys who did it were very polite, and cleaned up after themselves pretty well. They even used my hosepipe to wash down all the windows and window sills where the brick dust had settled! The whole bungalow was done for £149, which I consider to be a bargain. That should help cut down the bills too : )