Marie Cookpad

  The recipe I am sharing with you today is one I adapted from a recipe I found on a site called From the Larder.  It is called Bramley Apple & Mincemeat Pudding.  It is perfect for this time of year, and in fact would make a lovely holiday dessert for Christmas or Boxing day.   At its base is a layer of Bramley cooking apples which are chopped and mixed with some lemon juice, zest and brown sugar . . . .    Bramley Apples are fabulous cooking apples.  Large, flattish round apples with a green skin and red blush these are fabulously tart apples, with a beautiful white flesh that cooks down into a frothy pulp which makes them ideal for cooking with.  They make beautiful applesauce and crumbles.   They are incredibly tart however . . .  I cannot see anyone ever being able to eat one raw without any sugar.  I remember making an apple pie with them when I first moved over here and it was soooooo sour!    They make really great Baked Apples also because they hold up well when baking,

   We had company for dinner the other night.  I did a Roasted Ham with a honey/mustard glaze, some Potatoes Dauphinoise and a variety of vegetables.  I also made this delicious coleslaw.  I love coleslaw and in my opinion, you gotta have coleslaw when you have ham!   Coleslaw is one of those salads that comes in very handy during the holiday season when we are doing a lot of entertaining.  It is easy to make ahead and goes perfectly on any buffet table!    Perfect for Tree Trimming Parties and Pot Lucks!   My mother always made great coleslaw!  I can remember watching her stand at the counter making it.  She always shredded her cabbage by hand with a knife, and that is the way I like to do my cabbage also, with a knife.  I do grate the other vegetables, with the exception of the onion. That I chop by hand as well.    This version is prettied up a bit for the holidays with the addition of chopped dried cranberries.  Dried Cranberries are sweet without being overly so and add an almost

  Food like can be difficult for a Diabetic.  I am a Type 2 Diabetic and my husband is not.  He can eat whatever he wants and never gain an ounce.  In fact he has a difficult time keeping weight on.   So in this house it is a fine dance between making sure he gets what he needs to eat and keeping me in line with what I should or shouldn't eat.    As you know, I do bake him lots of treats and try not to overly deprive him without overly tempting myself.  It is very difficult at times and I admit, I do taste far more than I should sometimes, but thankfully my blood sugars stay within the guidlines most of the time. I can tell when I have gone overboard because my vision gets blurry and that's when I start drinking lots of water. Thankfully it doesn't happen very often.    I saw this recipe on the Mr Food Recipe Kitchen site the other day, in the Everyday Diabetic Recipes Section and it looked really good and like something I could indulge in every now and then.  French toast.

  I had wanted to share this recipe prior to Thanksgiving, but time got away from me.  I can't not show it to you however as it was really a lovely pie and we both really enjoyed it very much.   I confess when I was growing up I didn't really like pumpkin pie very much.  It wasn't until I became an adult that I found myself able to fully appreciate its virtues.   I think of all the pumpkin pies I have made through the years I enjoyed this one most of all.  It was a bit different than the usual pumpkin pie.  I found the recipe on the Land O Lakes website and adapted it from there to British measurements, etc.    I'm afraid I also took the liberties of cutting the recipe in half as there are only two of us in our home and we were not expecting any company.   I cooked the half recipe in an 8 inch square baking tin, which worked perfectly.    It cooked in the same amount of time as the full one would have done, probably because it was a bit deeper.   It had a beautiful velv