![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Carols are belting from the iPad and the house is full of the alchemy of lemon and orange, cinnamon, clove, grated nutmeg and hopes for Christmas holidays. There's that moment when the kitchen table is sticky with raisins and stained with cranberry juice. Zesting the oranges and lemons and squeezing the juice out is another task that goes better with company. I cajole the kids into helping me chop and snip the dried apricots, prunes and cranberries and apples. What's nice about this recipe is its easy-going exhortation to experiment by adding chopped pears with walnuts, clementine with almonds or "whatever combination of fruit or nuts takes your fancy." I also pull out Nigella Lawson's equally luscious instructions for Cranberry studded mincemeat.Īnna-Liza Kozma's son helping prepare the mincemeat pie. I have a wrinkled Sophie Grigson recipe cut out of the 1990's Sunday Times which bears the crucial phrase "this is good fairly recently made". Add fresh cranberries and chopped apple, lemon and orange zest with their juices and you have Christmas in a bowl as far as I'm concerned. I usually think about it some more on the drive home listening to a podcast of the BBC radio soap The Archers where Stir up Sunday always gets a mention, and I picture a nation of cooks pouring packets of dried fruit and spices and stirring in generous glugs of booze.īecause really that's what mincemeat is. This last Sunday before the season of Advent, a kind of liturgical countdown to Christmas, is traditionally the time bakers in Britain mix up their Christmas puddings and cakes.Īs I work on Sundays producing Cross Country Checkup, I have a good excuse not to pull out my largest mixing bowl on the actual day. Then always quicker than you think, Stir Up Sunday sneaks up on us. Gradually a dedicated drawer in my pantry fills up with ingredients and the scent of Christmas. And then there's a hunt for the freshest cinnamon and nutmeg. Dried apricots, dates and prunes are in the mix too. I scan grocery aisles and bulk bins for the juiciest sultanas, raisins and currants. I hate shopping, but what I do start to think about is making my mince pies. Anna-Liza Kozma and her family preparing mincemeat pies. ![]()
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