Cherrylicious

(Is it even a word?)

Apologies for the excess of edible blips - you either love them or loathe them I suspect but I'm always on a mission to  reduce food miles and wastage and to spread the word about obtaining  stuff from sources other than the conventional ones - "thinking outside the supermarket bag" if you like. Allotments, community fridges, local producers, markets, surplus, and the great outdoors all meet with my approval - if, of course, people are able to take advantage of them  by virtue of opportunity,  fitness, mobility, income and availability.

Anyway, after the sermon, the sacrament.
 I rarely bother with fiddly  little mince pies and prefer to make instead  a mincemeat and apple jalousie (window blind in French), basically a rectangular tart with the crust scored into stripes. Inside there's a mixture of apple (windfalls from a neglected tree) and regular mincemeat (a jar that was sold off half price last year - it never goes off). Admittedly the puff pastry was from a packet (because I like to save time as well as money.)

The Alleyway Cherry Wine was made by my Manchester son whose urban foraging knows no bounds. He's also a very good wine maker. Labels courtesy of  his girlfriend's fair hand.