Thanksgiving Traditions: How to Make Vegetarian Mincemeat

This morning over at Ravelry, member NicolaKnits posted a recipe for vegetarian mincemeat. She kindly consented to my posting it here. So this is her recipe, word for word.
Mincemeat (vegan and fat free)

3 cups dried currants
1.5 cups golden raisins
1.5 cups raisins
.75 cup candied peel
1 pound apples, peeled and finely chopped
2.5 cups sugar
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp [...]

It’s Fall: How to Make Concord Grape Juice

We have some decorative grape vines covering our backyard pergola, and each year I’ve  felt  bad about not, somehow, using the grapes, other than eating out of hand. I’ve never tasted a homemade wine that I’ve liked, not even in Italy, and besides, we don’t have a large enough crop for wine.  Just this morning, [...]

Watch This: Julie and Julia

Delightfully delicious
In 1949, Julia and Paul Child moved to Paris. For a while, newly unemployed, Julia flounders about for something to do, and finally hits upon cooking. It’s France, after all. In 2004, Julie and Eric Powell moved to Queens, NY. Julie thought she’d become a writer, but has become stalled in a [...]

Summer Traditions: Salt Water Taffy

As a kid, whenever we spent a day at the beach, I couldn’t resist a sack of salt water taffy. Sweet, sticky summer stuff! But I always wondered about the “salt water” part of its name, as there isn’t so much of a hint of salt lurking below its many flavors. Today I’ll try to [...]

Easter Traditions: Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns
One a penny buns;
One a penny,
Two a penny,
Hot cross buns.
If you have no daughters
Give them to your sons
One a penny
Two a penny
Hot cross buns

(traditional)
Hot cross buns are a small, spicey fruit cake decorated with a glaze and a white icing cross. In some versions, the cross is cut into the top with [...]

How to Make a Hot Toddy

First off, what is it? Simply stated, a hot toddy is a mixed drink containing tea (or coffee, water, cider, coffee, etc.),  whiskey or another form of alcohol, and a sweetener.  Sometimes fruit, spices, and butter are added. Once believed to alleviate a cold, toddies were traditionally drunk at bedtime, or to warm up after [...]

Chocolate: Food of the Gods

While today most of us probably associate chocolate with Nestle’s or Dove bars, originally it was prepared in the form of a spicy drink. Chocolate is made from the seeds of the cacao plant, a rain forest plant that fortunately (!) was discovered at least 3000 years ago in Mesoamerica, judging from residue found [...]

Historical Fiction: The Book of Unholy Mischief, by Elle Newmark

Transformations
Venice in the early Renaissance was a perilous in the extreme. Innocent or guilty, prominent or poverty stricken, an individual could be destroyed in the blink of an eye, if it suited the aims of the politically powerful. The age of scientific enlightenment was dawning, but superstition and “heresy” still abounded under the [...]

Christmas Traditions: Plum Pudding

Here in America, we’re familiar with the old English Christmas dessert, plum pudding, from stories and songs. Few of us, however, have ever even tasted it. One year I bought a boxed one, with a little tin of hard sauce, from the supermarket, but it was truly awful. Now I’m curious enough to do a [...]

Thanksgiving Traditions: Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Traditions can be started any time, and last year, using a recipe provided by Meg, my DIL, I changed my Thanksgiving sweet potato tradition from lightly candied with brown sugar, to ginger mashed. The pilgrims didn’t have ginger, but we do, and these potatoes were scrumptious, with the added the benefit of less sugar and [...]