Jams and chutneys

There's something really cosy and homely about stocking up the cupboard with jars of preserves to see you through the winter.  You've always got a jar to give to a friend or donate to a charity coffee morning.

Last week I decided to make some spiced apple chutney. I found the recipe in the Sept/Oct issue of Landscape magazine. As with all the chutneys I have ever made, it is easy to cook, but takes hours to make.
I have found that I need to set aside a full day to make chutney. Preparing the ingredients can take ages, then all you do is throw them in the pan, bring to the boil and simmer--but it takes hours to get the point when it is ready. You need to go away and do something else while it is cooking.  Chutney is ready when all the vinegar has evaporated and when you draw a spoon across the surface of the chutney a channel is formed without any vinegar filling it.

If you are making chutney for Christmas it needs to be made about a month or two in advance to allow the flavours to develop. I've never made this recipe before and I did lick the spoon after I had filled up all the chutney jars-- it tasted pretty good.  So I'm wondering if I can really wait for a month before eating it.

I've also made apple and blackberry jam. Click here for recipe. You may notice now that I'm making things with apples. If you've read my last blog,  you'll know why.

Tomato harvest

This is the first year growing in our new greenhouses and we've had a good summer with cucumbers, tomatoes, sweet peppers and chillies. But the tomatoes are now almost finished. Last weekend we cleared out most of them, leaving just one growbag with three 'Gardeners' Delight' plants still ripening. The thing about tomatoes is that once they get going and start to ripen you often have loads ready all at once.

One of my favourite things to make with them is tomato soup.  I make a pot full and freeze it. On cold days later in the year it's a reminder of those summer days I spent picking tomatoes.

Last year when we didn't have a greenhouse on Plot 8, the tomatoes were grown in the greenhouse on  Plot10b which was Helen's old plot.  They were very slow to ripen and looking back in my allotment journal we were still picking them well into October. I finally made green tomato chutney with them, which was delicious and friends and family have been looking forward to this year's batch. They are going to be disappointed, no green tomato chutney this year.  Instead I used the same recipe but with the red tomatoes.  I hope it is as good, it took hours to cook and the kitchen smelled of vinegar for days after.

Here's the recipe:

Tomato chutney

2kg  red or green tomatoes

500g apples

500g onions

250g raisins

25g salt (I didn't use so much)

500g sugar

600ml vinegar

Spices of your choice eg. ginger, pepper, chillies 

(I used some grated root ginger and some chopped chillies)

Finely chop the tomatoes, apples and onions and place all the ingredients in a large pan. Heat gently, stir and simmer until a pulpy consistency is achieved. It took about 3 hours to reach this pulpy stage so allow plenty of time for cooking.

Jar up and seal.

 

The horticultural show

We have a horticultural show in our town every year. You know the sort of thing, people exhibit things in a variety of classes, like fruit, veg and flowers. I'm ashamed to say that although we have lived in the town for 29 years we have never visited this show before.  My daughter decided that this was the year to go.  She wanted to enter some of our allotment vegetables, but we weren't sure what sort of standards were expected.  So we looked at the list of classes to enter and decided to just enter our chutneys this year and see what might be expected in the veg and fruit stuff so we can prepare ourselves for next year.  Mine was apple and cranberry and hers was beetroot.  I did wonder if my chutney was a bit old as I'd made it last November, but it was still tasting good, in fact I thought it had improved with keeping.  I had one jar left.

We arrived early in the morning to leave our chutneys before the judging took place.  There were two other chutneys there, we wondered if any more would arrive.  We went back in the afternoon after the judging to see how we had done. Sadly neither of our chutneys got placed, but we didn't mind, we wandered round looking at the other exhibits.  There were cakes and biscuits, we thought we could do that next year. I think my shortbread is worthy enough to be entered.  There were a lot of handicrafts on display, but we thought we would have liked to see more fruit and vegetable classes.

We admired this wonderful cabbage and onions.

There were some important people there too.

Now we know how it all works we'll be well prepared for next year's show.