My dad’s favorite pie was mincemeat. His mom made it with meat. I never had the opportunity to taste hers, but I made mincemeat with venison for dad’s birthday many years ago. Mom would buy the None Such brand of mincemeat to make dad a pie for his birthday - it’s gotten expensive & hard to find in local stores.
I will probably make mincemeat (no meat) over the holidays - the pudding recipe looks interesting so I might give it a try - thanks!
That quick pudding....Give it a try first small batch to see how it turns out, I have not tried it!
There are better Plum Pudding recipes out there but they involve things like water baths and soaking the pudding in brandy for a month in preparation for Christmas almost like a fruit cake! (I made a steamed version for a church Christmas Festival 7 or 8 years ago.)
At home it was fun to douse the pudding with warm brandy, turn out the lights, and set the thing on fire!
None Such must’ve been THE mincemeat brand back in the day. To my recollection, Mom only made MM pie a time or two during the holidays, and only when some of her siblings were visiting. I never cared for it, but that’s neither here nor there.
I am torn between my two favorite pies at Thanksgiving, pecan and apple. My daughter LOVES pumpkin pie, so we will see what happens this year.
We had a lovely FaceTime call with her and her hubby today. She looks so beautiful, but funny thing, she doesn’t think she is. Not that that matters, but it’s so funny how people view themselves, and how others look at the same person and have such a differing perspective. Her pregnancy is going on without too much drama any more, but Wednesday is her 2 week mark from her due date. All we pray for is a healthy a delivery for both her and the baby.
We talked at length about all the prep and all the differences between deliveries, back then and now. The medical version is so different now than when I had my children. I’m not sure what was wrong with the way things were when we had kids, but apparently, little of that is the way they do it now. Like I said, all I care about is healthy mama and baby (daddy too but he’s on the periphery).
Thanksgiving dinner was only slightly discussed. A turkey is on order, and that’s about it. We are very good at flying by the seat of our pants, so we will make do with whatever we have. We may have Thanksgiving Dinner that day, or two days later if need be. It will indeed be a blessed Thanksgiving!
Pray that the shutdown doesn’t affect our air travel out there (or back). That’s another thing beyond our control that I’m thinking about. Air travel isn’t fun anymore, and if there are cancellations, I’m thinking travelers will be stressed, and not on their best behavior.
Cow Chronicles:
The farmer has been checking the fields every day. Yesterday morning, he stopped along a grove of cedars & got out of his pickup. I could tell there was a cow milling around, but the site was just over a rise so I couldn’t see down to the ground & I also did not have my binoculars. He was doing something at ground level, then put down the tailgate & put something in the pickup bed. As he drove away, the cow followed for a distance, then went back to the original spot where the farmer had stopped. A little while later, she went about half the distance to the main herd, then back to ‘the spot’ again.
Sadly, it appears she had a calf & it did not survive. This would be the first calf of this calving season. The herd has been expanded since last year so I am surmising that some heifers were added (cows who have not had a calf). Being smaller & not fully mature themselves, they tend to have their first calf earlier & encounter more difficulties during the birthing process.
Last year, the calfs started coming the week of Thanksgiving so it won’t be long before there will be a lot more “action” across the road. The calfs are so small at first, they look like large black labs, hanging close to their mamas.
The farmer also started feeding round bales Nov. 1. The cows weren’t super interested in the first bale or two, but with cold weather & a heavy frost, they’re spending more time on the hay rollouts.
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Weather: turning sharply colder today & overnight. Windy enough to have a wind chill factor. Also mentioned is ‘snow’. If we get any, it should be a ‘light blanket’. Daytime temps will be above freezing, so it shouldn’t last long. I will definitely have to turn on the space heater in the shop bathroom tonight so the water pipes don’t freeze.