I almost know what I'm doing

What goes with eggnog?

Mincemeat pies. Um, sorta mincemeat. And kinda not really a pie.

Proper 'mincemeat' really does have meat in it. In fact, the picadillo I stuffed into poblano peppers is more like traditional mincemeat than this filling is, but I've never been one for tradition. I am firmly of the opinion that "it's always been done this way" is the best reason to do it another way.

And so I stuffed biscuit dough with fruit.

(first eggnog, now mincemeat... almost seems like we're actually on top of a holiday for once)

Minced Fruit Pasties (or Turnovers, if you prefer)

What you need:

• 1 recipe's worth of biscuit dough or biscuit dough
• 2.5 small wrinkly apples, or about that much apple
• a few dried pears (or apricots, or some other fruit)
• 1/2 c dates
• zest from one orange
• 1/2 inch ginger
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp cinnamon sugar (or cinnamon and sugar to make that amount)
• 1 tsp vanilla (you can use some kind of booze here if you'd like)
• 1 egg

What you gotta do:

I had a few apples in the fruit basket that have been there for way too long. I once read "wisened" as a description for apples, and I think that's what these ones were. Fresh crisp ones would work fine too, but if you've got a couple old ones sitting around... (anyone seeing my inspiration for this recipe?)

Put your grater into a medium sized bowl, and start grating apples. Peel them? What? Why? I rarely see any reason to peel apples. The peel is completely edible, doesn't taste bad, and will add colour to things if it's red. Plus, that's extra work.

Zest the orange on a microplane grater, and then use it for the ginger. Microplanes are great for ginger.

Chop whatever dried fruit you're using into small chunks. If you've got some candied orange peel, that would work too.

My butter and cinnamon sugar are already combined, leftover from the cinnamon buns, but yours should go in now, separately if that's how they are.

Vanilla too. Or booze, your call.

Now, the dates. You can pre-chop these if you want, but dates are pretty easy to mash, so I just dumped mine in whole and went at them with a wooden spoon.

If you don't happen to have a batch of biscuit dough in the fridge because you made a double when you did yesterday's cinnamon biscuit buns for brunch, you'll have to make some.

If you do: handy! Roll it out into a rectangle.

I cut mine into 9 pieces; the pieces were the right size (about 5x5 inches), but this only makes filling for 6. I'm sure you can find something to stuff into those biscuits. A bit of sausage would be nice... Sausage biscuit rolls!

Drop a couple or three tablespoons of the filling mixture on one side of a biscuit square, and spread it out into a triangle-ish shape. No meat, but it kinda looks like there is...

Don't get too close to the edge. Fold the other half of the dough over the filling to make a triangle.

Starting at one of the corner points, lift the bottom dough and stretch-fold-roll it over the top dough. Biscuit dough is sticky enough that you shouldn't need any water or egg to make the edges stick, but if yours aren't sticking, water will help.

Stretch-fold-roll your way toward the point, then stretch-fold-roll along to the other corner.

Apparently I took no pictures of this process.

When you're done, they should look something like these:

Brush them with an egg with a tsp of water beaten into it.

Cut a slit or two in the top so steam can escape. If you to this, you are less likely to have filling explode out of the side. You can dust the tops with sugar too if you'd like.

Bake them at 400 for about 20 minutes.

I'm still working the kinks out of my new oven, but I'm pretty sure I was around 400, and mine only took 18 minutes.

They'll be lovely and shiney and golden when they're done.

And some of them will have strangely face-like features.

Tasty served with morning coffee, afternoon tea, or a glass of evening eggnog.

Stick around. We are actually going to pull off some holiday shit this year. Taneasha's thinking sweets, and I'll be making small things you can eat with one hand.

Maybe one day I'll get back to writing things you want to read with only one hand... ;)

rats

I've loved ratatouille ever since I read "The Princess and the Zucchini."

And no it was not erotica.

It's a short story from an anthology that was published in the early 80s by the University of BC press, and it's not your typical fairy tale. The princess does not kiss her frog (zucchini) and live happily ever after; instead, she makes dinner for the family.

Ratatouille.

And though eggplant is often seen as the primary ingredient in this provencal vegetable stew, you just can't make it without the zucchini.

Ratatouille

What you need:

• 1 large eggplant
• 2 zucchini
• 1/2 onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 9 or 10 small tomatoes
• 8 cloves of garlic
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar
• basil
• thyme
• marjoram

What you gotta do:

I actually took more steps in this than are absolutely necessary. I was also apparently vibrating when I made this because nearly all of the pictures are blurred by movement. But, it's stew, it's not like I need to show detail.

Preheat the oven to 425.

Chop the eggplant, zucchini, onion, and pepper into fair sized chunks, about 1 inch cubed. You can peel the eggplant if you want, but it's not necessary. I partly peeled mine. The colour is nice to have, but I find the skins can be tough sometimes.

Put the veggies in a large baking dish along with 6 of the garlic cloves, whole, and drizzle a few table spoons of olive oil over them.

See what I mean? Fuzzy.

Toss the oil and veg together so that they're all just barely coated with the oil.

This is the only perfectly clear picture of the night.

Roast the veggies for at least 30 minutes, then take them out, stir them, and poke at them to see if they're done. They should be tender, on the way to being soft, but not mushy. They may need another 15 minutes in there. Mine did.

But that's okay, because it gives you time to make the sauce.

So, yes, you could just put the tomatoes and herbs in the baking dish and do it all in one pan. But you don't have quite as much control over the moisture level that way. And most of the moisture is going to come from the tomatoes. I wanted a very thick stew, not at all soupy, so I did my tomatoes on the stove top in a small pan.

First though, chop them into chunks about the size of the rest of the veggies and remove the seeds and pulp. That part alone gets rid of a fair amount of moisture.

Chop the garlic, and chiffonade the basil as well.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a shallow pan. Drop in the tomatoes and garlic and let them cook for a few minutes. The pan should be hot enough that the tomatoes sizzle as soon as they're in, and they should stay bubbling the whole time. It won't take long for the tomatoes to lose their shape and turn into something resembling a thick sauce.

Once they have, add the herbs.

Three pictures of the damn sauce and this is the clearest one. I gave up.

Basil is apparently some kind of faux pas in ratatouille because it's considered too Italian for this French dish, which I totally don't understand because it is considered a "herbe de Provence" like the thyme and marjoram are. Lavender is too, and while I have some in the cupboard, I'm saving it for a fabulous dessert.

By the time the tomatoes have cooked down, the veggies should be done.

Pour the tomatoes over them, then add about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.

Okay, the blur in this one might be my fault, because I was pouring and picturing at the same time. But still! That's amazingly fuzzy, even for me.

Gently stir this all together. The veggies should be able to hold their shape as they're being coated by the tomatoes and vinegar.

I know, it seems a little odd to be pouring vinegar into a stew, but it gives the sweet veggies a bit of zing.

Serve with some crusty french bread, or some garlic toast with mozzarella.

If that's not too Italian for you. (seriously, where do people come up with this shit)

You can serve this with rice, or noodles, or as a side with chicken. Me, I'd rather eat it with a spoon. I also want to try putting it on the garlic bread and baking the mozzarella on top of it...