Quick, Easy, Cointreau Mincemeat

I bastardised several Googled recipes for this, looking to make some last minute mince pies and, possibly, a mincemeat & apple pie for Boxing Day. 

Ingredients

• 1 bag of Sainbury's Basics mixed fruit

• 1 tub chopped candied mixed peel
• 1tub glacé cherries, chopped 
• 2 small apples, cored and chopped small 
• Glug of rum 
• 150ml Cointreau 
• zest of 1 lemon, juice of same
• 200g shredded veggie suet
• 200g dark brown sugar
• ½ small nutmeg, grated, or to taste

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl apart from the Cointreau and the rum. Add about 100 ml of the Cointreau, give it a good stir and leave overnight. If you're in a hurry ignore the resting bit. 

In the morning heat in a pan on a low heat until the suet is melted, stirring hard and often. I used veggie suet as I have veggie guests coming for Xmas. 

Stir the mix often as it cools. When cooled add the rest of the Cointreau and the rum. Stir some more. Eat small spoonfuls to ensure no more alcohol is needed. 

Mmmmm...

Damn those Archers!

Yesterday I made a batch of mincemeat using Cointreau. This morning I find that Jennifer Aldridge, in the Archers, has done the same. So much for what I thought was a moment of mincemeat genius..,

Fresh Bread

Baking your own bread has a number of things going for it. Firstly, the taste is great - there's nothing like freshly baked bread. Secondly it's cheap. Artisan bread is rather expensive, although you can get decent bread from most supermarkets these days. Thirdly, though, it's great to have the oven on when it's so bloody cold!

This is  the result of a rather nice simple French bread recipe, which I'll post soon. 

Packed Lunch

I'm back working now, albeit part time, and getting back into the routine. This includes, of course, a working lunch. My new role is rather different to my last 'proper' job as a marketing director in the City, where lunching was a part of your working life. Indeed, I was known to certain colleagues as the 'luncheon director'. This is not to say that the quality of my lunches has declined. A great packed lunch should rival anything in respect of flavour if we put a little bit of love & effort into its creation. 

A lunch time staple is the sandwich, of course. We may have invented the sandwich, but we don't pay them sufficient respect in my view. The French and the Spanish do better in terms of quality of ingredients. The Catalan bocadillo chorizo, with its fresh bread rubbed with tomato springs to mind. The Americans, on the other hand, produce magnificent sandwiches, which often feature all the contents of a well stocked fridge. It is almost impossible to bite a New York deli sandwich with a dainty, European sized mouth. 

So back to today's lunch. Regular sliced white bread, I'm afraid, but with a magnificent filling. Tuna, anchovies, those little plum tomatoes, gherkin & beetroot. Flavour comes from white wine vinegar, smoked paprika and ground black pepper. No olive oil as the tuna came in sunflower oil and that does the trick. 

The problem is not eating them on the bus into work....