Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all! I have taken the day off to help my daughter pack for massage therapy school. She however partied too late last night and isn't home yet. I did get a phone call alerting me that she had sprained her ankle and it is quite swollen. Man, that girl will do ANYTHING to get out of work. She is scheduled for orientation on Monday and yet doesn't quite want to move out yet. The rent on her new room is paid, her housemates awaiting her arrival and yet she lingers here. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have been making such wonderful meals for her. I have warned her that with my budget for her education I can definately see Ramen Noodles in her future. Now, speaking of Ramen Noodles, I have known to be creative with them. I do believe there are several cookbooks dedicated to these affordable belly fillers, and when I was starting out, they were a main staple in my cupboard.
I have a few meal ideas rumbling around this pitiful brain of mine (even though my Italian husband has cried "no mas"). I have very vague memories from my childhood of mince meat pie. I remember thinking that meat didn't belong in a pie, and it wasn't for me. Yet now that my adult tastebuds have united with my childhood memories, I want to try it again. I have found recipes with ground beef, yet this is NOT how I recall it. I think it was a mix of beef and pork and truly minced with perhaps onions, fruits, nuts, sweet spices and I just wish I knew what else. So, my quest for the moment is to bake my grandmother's mince meat pie. Then on to create another memory: duck and sweet potato pastry puff, but that my friends is for an entirely different post!
Marsha's Minced Meat Pie...(first attempt)
Ok, the meat is cooking...Here is the first attempt All mixed together in my dutch oven in no particular mixing order
2 pounds beef stew meat
2 cups beef broth
8 ounces crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon each of cloves, nutmeg and all spice
1/2 cup orange juice
one onion quartered
1/2 cup white cooking wine (didn't have any sherry)
Juice from one lime
one 8 ounce can of canned peaches ( I actually used a jar of peaches I had canned myself dumped it in juice an all)
My plan is to cook the living hell out of it until everything can be minced together...hoping much of the fluid cooks off. I have started it on top of the stove but will likely transfer it into the oven for several hours while I am out shopping. I will then mince it all together and bake it in a pie crust. Will update when it is all over and my review is in.