Pear Mincemeat Pie

My writer friend Molly Macrae was posting a Carmelized Pear tart/pie thing on her Facebook yesterday. Now Molly guest blogged here as Ms. Prune Whip last month, and will be back with Fruitcake soon. She loves many of the foods I make fun of, including salmon loaf, mincemeat, prune whip, etc. I thought she might like a Mincemeat-Pear recipe, and found this from a previous blog post:


But I also looked in my books, and realized that the combination of Pear and Mincement is in most of my cookbooks. Ahhhh! How is that possible?

This is from the 1968 Betty Crocker Pie and Pastry Cookbook, and I like it as clippings fall out from a previous owner, including one from Buffalo News for Holiday Pies, no date.



Pear Mincemeat Pie:


Pastry for 9-inch two-crust pie


1 jar (28 oz.) prepared mincemeat (3 cups)


6 canned large pear halves


6 maraschino cherries


Heat oven to 425 F. Prepare pastry. Spread mincemeat in pastry-lined pie pan. Press pear halves into mincemeat with cut sides up and narrow ends toward center. Place a cherry in hollow of each pear half. Cover with Lattice Top. Cover edge with 2-3 inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking. Bake 40 - 50 minutes or until crust is nicely browned. Serve slightly warm and, if desired, top servings with Whipped Cream Cheese and Old-Fashioned Lemon Sauce (both? really?)




A couple exciting things happened yesterday. One, the article by cookbook collector and writer Susan Mellish at Antique Week came out. I was interviewed on my favorite subject and thoroughly enjoyed talking to her.



Second, when I arrived back at work after vacation, I had a package from the Pillsbury Corp. Inside was a t-shirt about pie, some recipes for apple and pumpkin pie, and a handwritten note:
We love pie and are glad to hear that you do too! Enjoy this 'Love the Pie' t-shirt and delicious pie recipes from Pillsbury!

These things are so cool. I started this blog to teach myself blogging almost 4 years ago, and never imagined I'd be giving talks, interviews and receiving fun things like that in the mail. I have a lot to be Thankful for this year!