I would love the recipe if it isn’t too much to type out. I haven’t had a good mince pie since Mom stopped doing holiday dinners.
Remember the BIL in Texas on dialysis who also has Parkinsons and dementia? He’s been taken to the hospital again and MIL can’t reach his wife. He was hospitalized last week - not a good sign. And my poor sweetie is fried.
But he’s pretty sure his brother will be admitted- tho he’s still stuck at the ER waiting. 5 hours so far.
Sucky Firday.
Poor man, this must be so hard on him. Can you maybe bring him some food and/or a stiff drink or is that frowned on nowadays.
Mistake just as well to have your weekend back.
That is a profound relief I bet. Congrats.
You’re doing a lot and getting results. Can’t beat that.
Thieving bastards!
JtC Awesome cookies & dragon.
So that’s what the kids are calling it these days? :grin;
Seriously, Bon voyage
Lotta small dogs in my building. A couple well-behaved but most are noxious neurotic aggressive yapping snapping machines. Damned shame what that does to an otherwise pleasant but dense community.
Excellent to hear. Seems this independent college life agrees with you.
Gaah! Is MIL cutting her trip short for BIL or for issues w her & her host?
IOW, the day wasn’t a total wipeout. 
good on ya!
As to me:
Had a nice afternoon of local burger out, then reef snorkeling here
Then some vitamin UV, a stop for a nearby drink & yak w random folks, then home, re-sheveled, and now ubering to Big Boy dinner aways across town. Real native Italian this time with a wine list that weighs several pounds.
Don’t need uber going. Returning just might be a different story.
Cheers all, enjoy your evening!!
MINCE PIE
3.75 cups raisins
27.5 oz tart apple, peeled, cored chopped coarsely
2.5 tablespoons orange zest
5/6 cup(195 ml) orange juice
1.25 cups apple cider or juice
1.25 teaspoons cinnamon
1.25 teaspoons cloves
5 soda crackers, crushed
Stir the raisins, apples, orange zest, orange juice and cider in a pan.Simmer over medium heat, stirringoccasionallu, until apples are quite soft, about 20 minutes. Stir in sugar, cinnamone and cloves amd crackers, until well blended. Refrigerate until ready to use. I bake the filling in the usual two crust pie way. I brush the top with a light egg wash and sprinkle with sugar. The top crust should be pierced several times with a fork and baked at 350 F(177C) until top is golden brown.
As I said I’ve made this a number of times and it tastes like the recipe my grandmother had.
Thank you SO much, I can almost smell the spices simmering already! Mom always used a lattice top crust, I bet your recipe would work well with one as well.
@purplehorseshoe I finally re-found Monkey’s comic strip!
@Baker, thanks for the recipe. My mom loved mince pie but nobody else did so she never made. In her honor I may try it. With boughten crust…
I wish I could be there and help you make home made crust. As a baker I did have to use some mixes in things. Some cake mixes are actually really good. But I never wanted store bought crusts, or canned frosting. The latter? Ugh, I’d rather have cake with no frosting.
This summer I rendered a lot of lard to make suet cakes for birds. But the fat can also make good pie crust. The crust recipe from work that I used was a very firm commercial vegetable fat, and the recipe is not good if I use, say, Crisco. But the lard is great.
Can we talk about this, please? Where did you get the fat to render? What sort of fat did you use. Does your suet get melty in the sun? Was it incredibly messy and did clean up involve major chemicals?
My pie crusts are OK. They are not great, but I use Crisco and probably over work them. I will try using commercial lard, which I use when I’m making refried beans but for nothing else.
I’ve just been interested in making suet for the birds because the cakes with mealworms and shelled sunflower seeds are almost 6 bucks each when bought in bulk and last less than three days each.
There’s a local store that specializes in high quality meat products. About once a week, if it’s available, I can get fat trimmed from beef carcasses. I chop it into small cubes, put it in a heavy pan, and heat it at the lowest temperature. It takes a while to melt out, but as it does I pour it off, straining it through cheesecloth. There will be cracklings left behind, the dog gets some and I don’t keep the rest. The melted fat I pour into cupcake pans with papers lining them. When chilled I pull off the liners and put the lard into ziploc bags in the freezer. Also, if you search online there are directions, but the way I do it works too.
I can only use the suet cakes in the cool parts of the year, starting soon, because they don’t have whatever chemical commerical cakes use to keep them firm. To make the cakes I mix up birdseed, minced citrus peel if I have it, stale nuts if I have them, and some peanut butter. They are never quite the same twice in a row. Melted lard is poured over the mix and the whole mess well blended and scooped out into a container to chill. I like to use styrofoam take away containers, they are about the right size, but anything will do. I have a couple of dozen ready for winter now, in the freezer.
She’s so worried about BIL she wants to be here with him. FCD is home, BIL is back in the behavioral ward - surprise surprise, he wasn’t taking his meds…
So I’m going to go to Indiana with him - daughter will come over tomorrow and get Higgs. Barring problems, we’ll come back on Sunday. With 2 of us driving, it should be fairly easy. Except FCD has to do all the night driving - my astigmatism is too dangerous after dark. If you don’t hear from me for the next couple of days, that’s why.
We will hope for the best for you, and we will be thinking good thoughts and having prayers that things will improve.
JtC, I hope that (St) George doesn’t actually slay this dragon. 
{{{Mooooooom}} Good thoughts sent your way.
baker, I may try this pie at Thanksgiving. Dad always has liked mince or raisin pie and turkey day is more about the dishes he likes but doesn’t fix for himself at this point (the past few years, Polish and German food).
When I took the jeans out of the dryer this afternoon, I made the discovery that I had (again!) left a tube of lipstick in one of my pockets. I threw a dog towel in the dryer for a short cycle to see of there was any remaining lipstick in there before drying the rest of the clothes. The dark wash jeans had very little staining (inside pockets only), but the light and medium wash ones looked like the Texas chainsaw massacre. I treated them with liquid laundry detergent, then washed them with a scoop of Oxyclean and two rinses, plus an extra rinse after the cycle. After their second trip through the dryer, they look fine. I do this dance a couple of times a year, unfortunately.
I got my tire repaired and new wiper blades at Discount Tire this afternoon. Since I set up an appointment, it only took 45 minutes in and out and I got out for ~$40.
Evening all. Soccer has been refereed, another ref was good enough to come forward and we split duties; I did the middle for one game and he was the sideline ref, and we switched jobs for the second game. Didn’t get my 12U lineup done, which was maybe a good thing since when I got home I had an e-mail that one of my players that they will miss the game tomorrow, so I would have had to redo it anyway. Big bowl O’Sallit has been consumed and slowly warming myself up (cools down fast when the sun sets).
GodBod, glad things are going OK. Enjoy visiting with your sister.
FCM, mental illness in the family is always stressful. FCD apparently has two brothers who are not well, one can only hope they get treatment. Meanwhile, safe travels to you and him to Indiana and back.
swampy, sounds like you’re about 75% better, hope the interview doesn’t stress you out.
Hippie, that’s quite a story; glad you were imaginative (and determined) enough to finally solve it.
Not a mincemeat pie lover, but I have to admit Cupcakes recipe sounds good; as does JtC’s cookie one.
red, for me it’s loose change in the pocket and occasionally a set of keys, I have left a ink pen in a referee shirt a couple of times that usually ended with me ordering a new shirt. Glad you were able to fix them. And good on the tire and wiper blades…Discount tire here is pretty good for those type of jobs for me too.
OK, need to be thinking about a early bedtime cause tomorrow looks pretty busy; all y’all take care.
Well dang, they sure do sound healthier but I probably couldn’t use them for more than a couple of months a year. I wonder what would happen if I put the suet in a shallow pan or dish for them. Birds, especially woodpeckers are pretty clever when it comes to getting treats. Food for thought!
I would have expected nothing less. I hope your drive isn’t horrible and that BIL stabilizes once he’s back on his meds.
George are one fierce kittah! VBC refuses to even look at the dragon. It came with pug smells and then GG got his cooties all over it and she Doesn’t Want It. So much so that she keeps tossing it off the bed when she sees I’ve put it back up.
Dang about the lipstick in the pocket, I’ve not done that, but I used to be the Reigning Champion of washing Sharpies. I wasn’t goth, I just wore all black because it was cheaper than wearing light clothing.
Discount Tire rocks. We’ve been using them for decades and have never been disappointed.
If you ask me nicely, I could send you a batch for Christmas. I am sure I could find some red and green glitter sprinkles and I rarely use Hershey’s cocoa powder since I found this stuff:
It just kicks Hershey’s right out of the ballpark.
If my cookies were competing against my peers, I would take unanimous first place just because of the Ghiradelli’s. Since I’m competing against cute elementary school kids, I’m hoping to get an honorable mention, LOL!!!
I napped. there was a giant thunderstorm. Spot wiped an eye booger in my goatee. I had an Avation to deal with all that. dinner was salmon and wild rice blend, with mushrooms and (frozen)peas.
I read that as down to an inch, like “OK, Wasp Woman”, but congrats!
How long have you been here? 
{{{{FairyChats}}}}
Glad things are going well, GodBod
Tell 'em you can’t be one, because you didn’t see the accident. 
The kitties are at Cat Country Resort. It’s 20.7 miles away, and they cried the whole trip. We put them in their suite. Abbey walked out and found a couch to hide behind and yowl. I got her, and she went to the top shelf in the suite. Goo climbed up with her, and they laid right up against each other. They never do that. We like it when they’re two feet apart on the same bed. But now, they were huddled together. Abbey put her paw over Goo’s head. ‘Why are you abandoning us? What did we do? Are we bad kitties? We’re sorry! We’re scared!’ It breaks our hearts whenever we go on vacation. They’re safe, and they’re loved. But I’ll be thinking about them every day.
After dropping off the cats, we went to the Bourbon Bar (Bourbon-something, anyway). It’s prime rib night, so that’s what we had, plus a couple of Manhattans. Returning home, I dropped off the Yamalube and the master cylinder rebuild kit to the neighbour. We’ll leave at 0900 tomorrow, and head down to Seattle to catch the ship at 1100.
I am so jealous now. The best we can get without driving to Flagstaff is Olive Garden. At least we finally got a taco truck at the junction, but I’m still wishing for Pizza delivery.
I hope your journey goes well. You will be in my thoughts.
Noooo, don’t feel like this, they will be fine after they have time to sleep and have a bath. Enjoy your vacation and ask if the Resort workers could send you pics on a regular basis.