Mincemeat Pie

I almost think this is my best recipe to date!

My dad's birthday falls on (or near) Thanksgiving, and he is as much a foodie as I am. I always told myself that one year I was going to make him a REAL mincemeat pie, and I finally did it.

I started searching out a good traditional recipe to use, only to find that none of them met my standards. It didn't have the ingredients I wanted, or had ingredients I didn't want, or just didn't look right to me so...

I made my own. With inspiration from the ages, of course.

Like the Welsh Cookies, this recipe is NOT Primal, but it's made up of real food, and when it comes to mincemeat pie, that's all that matters.

Start with your excruciatingly long list of ingredients...

Mincemeat Pie

Filling:
1 pound ground beef
1/2 pound beef suet, ground
1 pound raisins
10 oz currents
1/2 lb sugar
1 orange, ground
1 lemon, ground
6 cups chopped apples
1/2 cup molasses
2 cups applesauce
1 teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 cup ginger brandy... or more.

Told you it was a lot.

Start first with your ground beef in a large pan, with enough water to cover. Cook until soft and add tallow, raisins and currents. Simmer until fruit is soft. Add remaining ingredients and heat on medium-low until apples are soft and it looks like pie filling.

(See, that was easy!)

Now to make the pie.

I sort of cheated and bought a gluten-free pie crust mix. (One step at a time here. I can only be so creative in a day!)

Having never made pie before, I simply followed the box instructions for making the crust. I think next time I will definitely make one from scratch!

After mixing the crust ingredients and letting it chill in the refrigerator, divide pie crust into two parts and set one aside in the refrigerator.

Sandwich the other half between two pieces of wax paper and roll to 1/4 to 1/8 inch thickness, and gently lay into pie plate, pressing out any trapped air.

Roll out the other half of the pie crust between parchment as with the first.

If you want to make it all fancy you can use cookie cutters to cut out a design. Otherwise simply pierce with a knife to allow venting.

The colder the crust is, the easier it'll be to work with.

Place the top crust over the pie and pinch the sides to seal. Brush with an egg wash and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

Let the pie cool before serving. It's absolutely fantastic with vanilla ice cream!

Needless to say, both Dad and Grandma approved of my Mincemeat pie, and I'm rather proud of the result as well!

(Not) My Grandma's Welsh Cookies

Sorry Grandma, I had to change the recipe.

(Just so you know, while I did make some switches in the recipe's ingredients, they're not Primal. They're just... improved.)

These are an old family tradition. I realized there are few times that I feel closer to my family and my roots than when I make Welsh cookies. There's just something about making them, each time I do it, it knits me closer to my ancestors.


Gluten-Free Welsh Cookies

3 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Flour
1 cup sugar*
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup lard
1/3 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup dried currents
1 egg + 2 egg whites**
1/2 tsp vanilla

*You can also use Z-sweet erythritol and it should yield the same result. I didn't have any so I can't tell you for sure.

**You should be able to use 3 whole eggs and still be ok. I added 2 egg whites to the original recipe because I needed more of a binder. The yolks happened to have another purpose- Avocado Mayo.

Start by mixing your dry ingredients together, then cut in the lard as if you're making pie crust. Wash the currents and set aside. Beat eggs, add milk, vanilla and currents. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Heat a griddle to medium-high heat. Flour your cutting board or counter top and lay out dough, then sprinkle the top with flour. Use a smooth glass to roll out dough, adding a sprinkling of flour as needed. Yes, a glass, not a rolling pin. It's the rule! Then use the mouth of the glass to cut out your cookies.

Heat cookies on the griddle until golden brown, then flip and heat the other side.

That's it! Enjoy, and try not to eat them all at once. (They're especially delicious when eaten with tea with cream.)

Updates!

I just wanted to post a quick little update to share some of the goings-on here at Fort Disaster. The Wilderness Childe, (moi!) has been very busy keeping up with school and work, and dabbling in the kitchen.

Since taking yoga I've developed a tremendous love of chai, and am seeking out other Indian recipes to teach myself as well. There has been a number of kitchen experiments recently that I'm planning to post very soon. Recipes for chai, quinoa, eggplant toasts, and other seasonal goodies will all be coming shortly.

Also I wanted to pass along an update to my post on GoldenStar Coconut Milk, one of my recent foodie finds. As luck (or the Universe) would have it, Anita Wong at GoldenStar stumbled across my little blog featuring their product. She was very pleased that I was spreading the word about their coconut milk and wrote me a very kind letter, which included the following...

"So you know Golden Star is a family run business that started in 1985 with Jasmine rice. Since then, we have expanded our line to include all kinds of rice (Calrose, Basmati, Long Grain), canned fruits & vegetables and Asian items like Coconut Milk. All of our items are all natural and packed at harvest season. We are a firm believer that as a family feeding other families we must put the very best out there."

I have updated the GoldenStar Coconut Milk post to include this, as I am very happy to learn this and share it with my readers! GoldenStar has become the "official" coconut milk of The Wilderness Childe blog and a staple here at Fort Disaster.

I've also decided to start telling you about some of the great Primal-friendly meals I've found at different restaurants in my area. Eating out can be difficult when you avoid grains, so I want to show you how and where you can still eat really great food- often for a fairly low price because hey, I'm broke too. I found a couple of fantastic ones recently that I think you'll really like.

Thanksgiving break is coming up, which means a few days off school and work to catch up on the to-do list, as well as eat gobs of delicious, mostly-Primal foods! Following that there are only a couple weeks of school left, and then it's off to Cleveland for a few days to visit my awesome Primal peeps!

Is anyone else ready for a vacation?

Coyote Energy

Apparently my life is full of coyote energy right now- thus the lack of recent posts. That's what my yoga instructor said, and it makes perfect sense now that I think about it.

Why do I always seem to need someone else to point out the obvious?

It started oh... three weeks ago. The same thing happened again this year. Almost the exact same turn of events two years in a row. My sister's Jeep goes into the shop and my car breaks down at the exact same time. I don't believe in coincidence, but what the heck?

Also, just like last year I managed to scavenge a deer off the side of the road near my job, when I was supposed to be working overtime.

Both of these things were even more exaggerated and (when looking from the outside) more comical than last year. It makes me fear slightly what might happen next year!

Coyote energy continues...

As the temperature drops I finally relent and turn on my heat, but to no avail. It's broken. I'm 2 weeks without my car and getting impatient, and now my heat is out. For the record, my landlord is a moron. There's a whole long story about the battle to get my heat fixed that I won't go into. I'll simply sum it up with her comment "I hope you have some warm blankets or a comforter you can wrap up in." Yeah. Seriously.

In the middle of that mess, gods forbid I use a space heater and a vacuum cleaner at the same time. If I do it'll trip my breaker, which is inconveniently located in my neighbor's apartment. Dandy huh?

Yesterday I'm rushing off to my final yoga class when I slam the kitchen door, only to realize my keys are still on the other side. /facepalm

Arriving to yoga late, I explained the disaster to my instructor. The wonderful woman she is, she comments... "You know, Deanna... that just means you need to pay better attention. That's coyote energy all around you, playing games, being a trickster."

I laughed. It was true. So awfully, obviously true.

So what do I do with this coyote energy? Roll with it I guess. That was my friend's advice when I consulted him on one of his deities, Loki, whom I suspected was paying a visit. He laughed at me, in that friend sort of way, and told me that I could not buy off Loki, or bribe him with a bottle of wine like I could my gods.

Damn it.

So I go with the flow and roll with the punches. My car has returned, my heat is functioning, and there are great and fascinating changes happening in my world that I will share with you soon. I'm praying that the holiday season brings many a recipe to experiment with and share.

I'm curious if there is anything in particular anyone would like to see in the coming weeks with the holidays just around the corner. As always I am open to questions and comments. Feel free to submit them to dianarenata@live.com

Be Well!