Mincemeat Plan

If you would enjoy some fragrant, spicy mince tarts for the winter holidays, and don't want to buy your mincemeat at the Giant Eagle or a place of that ilk, now is a good time to put up a few bottles. After an unusually hot summer here, we are finally beginning a crisp fall, and the smell of this stuff burbling away stove-top seems to fit in with the change nicely. Since part of the goodness of this item will be the saturation of the other ingredients with the rum, it is a good idea to plan for some time on the shelf soaking it up. If you don't use all your mincemeat this year, it will still be good next year-or a quart bottle would make a generous gift.

This recipe makes three quarts, and is vegetarian (no suet), so that vegetarian kin will be able to participate in end product eating. Also, as you may have deduced, it is a partial answer to the pleasant problem of my endless half bushel of green tomatoes. Thus far, these guys have been turned into both jam and pickles. This is absolutely it, the end of the line for the green tomatoes. There were three tomatoes left, which got fried up for breakfast, and they are done. I know I have said this before, and have already used the word "finale" in a green tomato context. But now there are none left, so I truly must stop posting about green tomatoes, unless I take a purely theoretical approach.

This stuff does need to be processed in a boiling water bath, requires a fair amount of pre-chopping, and cooks for about an hour and a half before you bottle it. It is, nonetheless, really pretty easy. You need not hover over it constantly as it boils down; you can do something else close by, and check on it from time to time. It won't need a close eye and constant spoon until it is nearly ready. It doesn't have to jell like jam; you just want it thick and brown- very little liquid should be left. All you need to do is to put the following ingredients in a good sized (at least 5qt) non-reactive pot:

2 qts. of diced (1/2" or so) green tomatoes
8 medium apples, stems removed, whirred in a food processor, skin, pits and all, and reduced to smallish rubble
1 lemon, skin on, also whirred in a food processor
1 orange, skin on, coasely chopped
2 cups mixed raisins
2/3 cup dried cranberries
1 cup dried cherries
3-4 cups dark brown sugar
2/3 cup cider vinegar
2 tsps ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
pinch ground cloves

Cook it for about an hour and a half, until it is thick, dark, and has very little liquid. Add 1/4 cup of rum and cook a few minutes more. Ladle into 3 sterilized quart jars. Cap with 2 piece canning lids, and process in a boiling water bath for 20 minutes. Cool overnight and check the seal. Place on pantry shelf. Hum to yourself and gloat.

n.b. My definition of "pantry" includes any place where preserved or long life foods are gathered on a shelf, waiting to be chosen. Maybe, in another life, I'll have a separate larder. But I consider myself fortunate to have a dark corner of my rented kitchen furnished with some wire shelves.

Comments

[anapestic]

I'm sure there must be green tomatoes around somewhere that I could get to make this, but I'm even surer that instead of measuring a quarter cup of rum, I'd just pour from the bottle. And then the phone would probably ring while I was pouring, and I'd end up with a cup of rum.

And let me tell you, it requires no small amount of coordination to pour with your left hand while your right hand is using your cell phone to dial your home number.