the top of the pie crust, so ppl who hate mincemeat won’t choose the mincemeat pie! Or so people who love mincemeat will choose the right one. LOL but you get what you get, since they’re both marked TM.
@Vecchiouomo ,no other hints?
Thank you! Please help me understand how “fork pricked TM” translates to “the top of the pie crust”!
ETA Oh! I see it now; “tis mince and 't’ain’t mince.”
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Sorry to be slow off the mark to explain. It was just a bit of droll annual humor. In actuality it was pointless as everyone asked for a small slice of each. Now I live and dine with people who are not familiar with mince. They are all about the sweets…pecan, mud, Bailey’s, grasshopper, banoffee, etc. Since I cannot (or at least should not) eat an entire mince pie by myself, I doubt I’ll ever taste it again.
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Walker’s Mince Tarts might be a solution for you 
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I’ve tried them. Not crazy about them.
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Have you found another commercially-made personal-sized mince pie that is a better option, for someone who wants a small amount of mincemeat pie?
I have seen other brands but I haven’t tried them.
Mr Kipling seems to be the other brand that’s easy to find in North America.
I think I may dig out mother’s recipe, quarter of halve it, and maybe use some pie dough to make something more like a hand pie.
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I never liked mincemeat growing up, which I think is pretty typical for kids. Likewise, fruitcake and English steamed plum pudding that my Gran made. Fast forward, my sister-in-law became intrigued with it, and made a pie one holiday. It was pretty good, but I can’t remember if hers had actual meat in it. It may have even been from a jar. I do think there’s some decent jarred stuff that could be “doctored” up a bit. I may even make a small traditional one, but not for Thanksgiving. Maybe Christmas.
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I was the one kid at Xmas who loved a boozy plum pudding and hard sauce. The other kids took a slice just to root through it to find a lucky dime wrapped in foil.
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There was never any money in Gran’s! Dang. The pudding was very rich, with what she called a hard sauce, but I don’t think there was any booze in there. I may be wrong. Otherwise, why call it hard sauce lol? Remember, this was in Utah too. Maybe she used an extract in it. When my mom made fruitcake (not often) she brushed Grand Marnier over it daily I think. Now that was good!
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The hard sauce with ours is butter whipped with rum or brandy and powdered sugar.
A British friend makes the hard sauce and gives it to us with a pudding from another friend.
The friend who makes the pudding makes a whisky sauce from a family recipe, with Canadian rye whisky. Her whisky sauce is a brown liquid caramel that we heat up before serving.
Whereas our hard sauce looks like butter and a tablespoon or 2 of it melts into the warm pudding.
Both are boozy and delicious.
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No, but then I haven’t really looked as for me a small amount is not something I look for; I like LARGE ones.
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Now I’m interested in how Gran made her sauce - I’ll have to ask my aunt, as she will know for sure. I remember it was all served warm, and was so rich that I always felt a little sick afterwards. There was powdered sugar in it, of that I’m sure. I’ll see if I can get the pudding recipe too. I made a couple puddings one time using a recipe I found in one of my cookbooks, but I used butter in it. My dad told me later, it wasn’t quite the same. Gran used beef suet, which I will use if I do make it sometime.
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this one contains no alcohol
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Yeah, I’m thinking her sauce may have been similar, but maybe she used a brandy or rum extract.
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I’m really enjoying reading everyone’s memories. Mine are somewhat overlapping - standardized menu that didn’t change from year to year, the relish tray, and way more people than should realistically fit in the space. A few more:
Grandpa M was put in charge of watching the marshmallows (atop the sweet potatoes) under the broiler to make sure they didn’t burn. He always let them burn because he preferred them that way.
Cousin S (10 years younger than me) was clumsy and always, always spilled food - the messier it was, the more likely he’d make a mess with it on a hard-to-clean surface. We’re talking sweet and sour meatballs on white carpet, ketchup all over himself, etc.
After all the guests were gone, my parents finally washed dishes/silver (the one time each year the good stuff came out of storage, no dishwasher allowed!) and almost every single year, one spoon couldn’t be accounted for. Once, my mom had my dad empty out the trash on the garage floor to look for the missing item! (He did find it. We blamed Cousin S.)
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I love steamed puddings and fruitcakes, but neither is overly sweet. My fruitcake is aged months, if not years, with regular additions of Sherry. My hard sauce for the steamed pudding is butter into which I cream as much powdered sugar as possible and add some Irish whiskey.
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My mom was told at some point, “don’t throw out your trash until you count your silver.” So, that’s what we do!
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I recall a LOT of very dry turkeys.
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Probably the first Thanksgiving I can remember at my parents’ house, I must have been about 6. I was all excited about the day, probably wore my macaroni necklace we made in school, basically trying to re-enact the first Thanksgiving, based on the fairy tales we were told at the time. I insisted the wild birds outside needed a lot of breadcrumbs, and of course made sure the cat got something special as well. It was pretty exciting to me at that time. We were also having non-family company for that meal - that was the first and last time that ever happened, for any occasion, that I can recall. Also the good china came out, so the table looked all fancy and pretty. Food wise I’m pretty sure it was just the regular, the stuffed bird, potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce from a can (Oceanspray), sweet potatoes from a can, candied and topped with marshmallows, and green beans, most certainly from a can. The food was good, just nothing beyond the ordinary. Rolls of some kind, but not homemade, and most probably some version of a relish tray. Then most likely, a pumpkin and pecan pie. Mom was not a pie crust maker, but if she did make her own that year, I’m sure the air turned blue lol. Dad always helped get the stuffing made and in the bird, which happened pretty early in the morning, since dinner was probably at one or two.
So good memories of that dinner, but the china got packed away, for decades, and was never used on our table again. It was finally liberated about 2010, when I convinced my mom to give it to my SIL. It is out and on display now, not in some dusty box! My mom was a minimalist way before that term was coined, so accordingly our celebratory meals followed suit - mismatched plates and silverware, hunkered down at the kitchen table. The pies were usually from frozen, with an exception or two. More types of Turkey Days to follow - they were never all the same. I don’t want this post to get too long!
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