Christmas is rapidly approaching and mince pies take a minimum of a week to make properly, so yesterday I made this year's mincemeat. Some people seem to think that this is harder than it is, so I thought I'd stick the recipe down here to prove that it's probably as easy as buying the stuff in jars.

You will need the following things:

Now quantities are always vague, but I work on a ratio system. I think that a lot of recipes care a bit too much about exactly how much to use, and I usually go on this sort of vague 'one of these for two of those' system. It seems to work! Anyway, going through the photo from top left we have:

2 x good quality minced beef.

Small pot of mixed glace peel.. about 'half' in our ratios

1 x (by weight) rum, brandy or a mixture of both

Ginger in syrup, about the same weight as the peel

1 x beef suet. Your local butcher will have this

4 x single eating apple

1.5 x ground almonds

1 x single grated nutmeg

Mixed spice, about twice as much as the grated nutmeg

2 x dried fruit. I've used half currants and half raisins here.

1 x single lemon

1 x single orange

1 x soft brown sugar

Making the mincemeat is easy - just chop everything that needs chopping into small pieces and mix together! You'll probably want to peel and core the apples, and the skin of the lemon and orange needs to be grated into the mixture and the remaining fruit squeezed.

You should end-up with something like this:

Whack it into some old jars and keep it for at least a week. It will then be ready to fill some pies. Yum!