Wednesday 19 August 2009

Fruit and chutney

The house we live in has a paddock out the back that has fruit trees growing in it and earlier this year we had a plum tree that produced and we ate loads of stewed plums and plum crumbles. This unfortunately had to stop when the plums ran out, but we have another 2 trees with plums ripening as we speak and also a damson tree which is looking rather full. We also have some apple and pear trees which aren't fairing so well with the wet weather but I'm sure that there will be enough to get us through a few months.

However what I really wanted to talk about was the old cooking apple tree in the back garden, it has been dropping apples every day for weeks now because of the wet and slightly windy weather and I couldn't sit around and watch all those apples go to waste so I've been collecting them and the nice big ones have been made into apple crumbles which have been going down very well with Rob (unfortunately the children don't seem to like them but with time I'm sure they will come round!) but I have also attempted some chutney, and I thought I would share it with you here. Its a version of Christmas Chutney and whilst cooking it makes the house smell just like Christmas, which I absolutely love. Cloves, oranges, cinnamon, apples, mixed spice, ginger, mmmmmmm can't wait for it to mature (2 whole months) and then I can try it on some freshly aga baked ham!





Am going to have to buy a preserve book, any recommendations would be great. Am now going to look through my cook books for a runner bean chutney, something to make with damsons and plums. Will let you know how it goes

xxx

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