Chutney and Relish Recipes

I bought some reduced price tomatoes and peaches at the Brae co-op yesterday and now I'm making Tomato and Garlic Chutney and Pickled Peach Relish. Kitchen smells great!

From Knobby, member of the Poultry Keepers Forums:

Knobby's Pickled Peach & Chilli Relish
Makes about 450g/1 lb

475ml/16 fl oz Cider Vinegar
275g/10oz Light Muscovado sugr
225g/8oz Stoned dried dates
5ml/1 tsp ground allspice
5ml/ 1 tsp ground mace
450g/ 1 lb ripe peaches (He used cheap Tesco tinned ones, I used fresh)
3 Onions sliced
4 fresh chillies, seeded & finally chopped
4 Garlic cloves
5cm piece fresh root ginger, finely grated
5ml/1 tsp salt


Place the vinegar, sugar, chopped dates & spices in a large pan & bring to the boil, stirring occasionally

Cut the peaches into small chunks & add to the pan, simmer for 40-50 mins.

Transfer to food processor & liquidize until you get to the consistency you like.

Spoon into warmed jars and seal. Leave to cool.

(I'm doing double the quantity)

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and from Sara Lewis' Slow Cooker Book:

Chillied Tomato and Garlic Chutney

1kg/ 2lb tomatoes - skinned and rough chopped
1 large onion - chopped
2 cooking apples - peeled, cored and chopped
2 red peppers - halved, cored and chopped
75g/ 3oz sultanas
100ml/ 3 1/2 fl oz distilled malt vinegar
250g/ 8oz granulated sugar
2-3 large mild chillies - halved, deseeded and chopped
6-8 garlic cloves - finely chopped
1 cinnamon stick - halved
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt
pepper

Preheat slow cooker if necessary. Put all ingredients in the pot, mix, cover and cook for 6-8 hours on 'High' until thick and pulpy.

Warm jars in bottom of a low oven, fill, seal and cool. Store for up to 2 months, once open keep in fridge.

Chickens, Loki and a mystery solved

I do the work of weeding and they fight over it!

Loki sitting enjoying the sun this evening

We moved the hens to a different shed this week and the egg supply went down. I put it down to the move and hoped it would improve. After weeding the veg patch tonight I moved the pallet over the compost heap to put the weeds in and found these! I love the way they have tried to lay them in the old egg boxes for me!

Chicks and baskets

I finally remembered to post a pic of the chicks. I got 9 hatched out of the 12 original eggs, very happy with that. The chicks are very cute and being cochins are fluffy right down to their toes!

At the Eid Craft Group last night I showed some of the members how to make woven baskets using newspapers as a sample material. The end result was four complete baskets and plans to make more from other materials.

Geo cache

My GPS arrived today and Craig and I went looking for and found our first geo cache: Lest We Forget Voe . Looking forward to finding some more now.

tree close ups

Our local loch has a small tree plantation and it's a great place to walk the dogs. Tonight I was playing around taking close ups of the trees.

This and that

Well the eggs are now in their 4th incubator since incubation began, after candling I am down to 9 eggs out of the original 12, not bad for posted eggs - they are due to hatch on Thursday, hopefully the chicks will find their way out of the shell. Let there be lots of girl cochins!

John has netted over the top of my veg patch as one of the exchequor leghorns started flying up and over the netting sides, ratbag! I was going to clip the wings of all three (they all look the same to me!) but he came up with the netting solution (which is actually better).

I've learnt another new craft (what again?). Last Thursday night a friend showed me how to do iris folding - something I had seen but avoided because it looked complicated. It isn't! If you want to make cards and/ or pictures that look good but are easy to do, this is for you. Have a look here for ideas and instructions: Iris folding . For these two I used the inside of used envelopes, lots of patterns and shades of blue in them!




Anyway, back to the other crafts, I have a basket to make and the willow is finally soaked enough ( I think). Pics of basket and chicks (god willing) will follow to bore you!

Friday on the beach

There's a time and a place for everything - and a Friday afternoon seems a good time to be in place on the beach. OK it wasn't the warmest of winds, but I was being paid to be there supervising 2 children who were playing well together!

My kids are jet setting at the moment - I had a phone call yesterday morning at 7.30 from Craig who was just about to set out for a day at EuroDisney - he seemed surprised I was still in bed, wait until next week when he's in bed on Saturday morning! Kirsty is in Portugal with the family she is working for, 1 week down and another week and a half to go.

coiled rope planter

Today I made my second rope basket. I am using it as a planter and I'm really pleased with it. The whole thing is made from beach combings. The base is a bucket lid, the sides and bindings are rope. I have lined it with a rabbit food bag and it's now home to a lavender plant.