The Verdict

I finally got round to trying some of my preserves over Christmas and have to say I was extremely pleased with the results...

... tomato & pepper relish really did taste as good as something you could buy in the shops - I can't wait to try it on a burger.

... pickled green tomatoes were quite sweet, I was expecting them to taste more like pickles. They are lovely with both cheese and ham.

... pumpkin chutney was a total delight, I will definitely be making more of that next year.

... pickled cucumbers, once again are just as good as the ones you can buy. I will have to put more effort into growing onions for pickling next year.

The only thing left to try is cucumber and apple chutney, hopefully I will enjoy that just as much as the others.

Tomato & Pepper Relish

This was another new recipe for me and I used tomatoes that were just under ripe. This required:

2 lbs Tomatoes
1 lb Onions
1/2 tbsp Salt
1 medium Red Pepper
1/2 tbsp Mustard Seeds
4 oz White Sugar
8 fl oz White Wine Vinegar

This is what I did:

Peel and finely chop the tomatoes and onions (I didn't actually peel the tomatoes, but the recipe said to do that). Mix together in a bowl, sprinkle with salt and leave overnight (I left them all day rather than overnight).

Put the tomatoes and onions in a colander and rinse under cold running water. Drain well.

De-seed and finely chop the pepper. Mix with the mustard seeds, tomatoes and onions in a bowl.

In a pan, mix the sugar and vinegar, heat gently to dissolve the sugar then bring to the boil.

Add the contents of the bowl, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Decant into hot sterilised jars and seal. Store for about 4 weeks before opening.

I did try this and it tastes very nice now... I assume it gets better as it matures.

Green Tomato Jam

I thought I'd do something completely different with some of the tomatoes and green tomato jam seemed completely different; I made a couple of batches of this.

This is what the recipe called for:

3 lbs Green Tomatoes
2 lbs Cooking Apples
4 tbsp Lemon Juice (bottled)
1 oz Root Ginger
3 lbs Sugar (I used a mixture of jam sugar and granulated)
A Little Water

This is what I did:

Wash and quarter the tomatoes (the second time I chopped them smaller than quarters). Peel, core and cut the apples into chunks. Place in a pan with the lemon juice.

Slice the ginger and tie up in muslin; place this in the pan.

Cover with enough water to come to the level of the fruit. I didn't really know what or how much this meant; the first time I think I put far too much water in and it took ages to simmer away, so the next time I just put in enough to cover the bottom of the pan before I added the tomatoes and apples.

Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer until the fruit is tender.

Remove from the heat, add the sugar and stir to dissolve.

Return to the heat, bring back to the boil then allow to simmer until reaching the correct consistency. Stir occasionally.

Decant into warm sterilised jars and seal.

This really is a lovely jam, a couple of people have said it tastes a bit like plum. You wouldn't think it was made from tomatoes and it is delicious on hot buttered granary toast.

Pickled Green Tomatoes

I got this recipe from a veggie growing forum on the internet and thought I'd give it a go. I think it said that the recipe is originally from Germany.

This is what I used:

5 lbs Green Tomatoes, 1 inch (2.5cm) diameter maximum, stems removed
2 pints Malt Vinegar
6 Cloves
1 x 1 in Cinnamon Stick
1 whole Nutmeg
pinch of salt
1 lb Sugar
1 pint White Wine Vinegar


This is what I did:

Place the tomatoes in a large pan with the malt vinegar. Stir very gently and bring to the boil, then strain immediately. 

Put the tomatoes very carefully into a bowl, taking care not to split the skins.

Boil the cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and sugar with the white wine vinegar in a separate pan.

Pour hot over the tomatoes. Cover and leave for 24 hours.


On day three, heat the tomatoes and the liquid together, but do not boil. Lift out the tomatoes with a slotted spoon and pack them carefully into warmed jars. Throw out any that have accidentally split their skins because they will ruin the effect of the pickle.

Reduce the liquid until it turns slightly syrupy, then strain off the spices and pour the cooling pickle over the tomatoes, making sure they are completely covered.

Seal and store for 3 months before opening.

I haven't actually tasted them yet, but the aroma as I was making them was very pleasant so I can't wait to try them.

More Green Tomato Chutney

My bumper harvest of green tomatoes called for a few batches of green tomato chutney.

I based it on a different recipe this time, which didn't use any apples. As per usual I changed it a little bit, so this is what I used:

5 lbs Green Tomatoes
1 lb Onions
1 lb Sultanas
1 oz Root Ginger
Chillies
Spices (black peppercorns, allspice berries, cloves, mustard seed)
1 pint Balsamic Vinegar
1 lb Demerara Sugar

And this is what I did:

Wash and chop the tomatoes and onions; I use a food processor to get them finely chopped. Place in a pan with the sultanas.


Slice the ginger root, chop the chillies in half (the recipe calls for 4 red chillies, but I used a variety that is green when ripe for one batch as I had some in the garden ready to be picked), and place in muslin with the spices. I varied the spice mix each time so didn't necessarily use all of them in each batch. The mix below was allspice berries and cloves.

Secure the muslin parcel and place in the pan with the vinegar.

Bring to the boil. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve. Reduce the heat to a simmer and stir occasionally until it has thickened to the right consistency.

Decant into warm sterilised jars and seal.

Chilli Jam

I am a huge fan of sweet chilli sauce so thought I would have a go at making some chilli jam; this version is from a Nigella recipe. The recipe called for:


150g red chillies (I used 100g)
150g red peppers (I used 200g)
1kg jam sugar
600ml cider vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)


I changed the quantities of the peppers because when I was weighing out the chillies there seemed to be rather a lot of them (I used apache).

This is what I did:


Pulsed the chillies in a food processor until they were finely chopped. Added the red pepper and repeated the pulsing.


Placed the vinegar in a pan and dissolved the sugar over a low heat. This is supposed to be without stirring it, but I stirred it once or twice.


Add the pepper mixture to the pan, bring to the boil and let it boil rapidly for 10 minutes.


Take the pan of the heat and leave to cool. It will become more syrupy, then change from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly-like as it cools.


After about 40 minutes, decant into warmed, sterilised jars and seal tightly.


This can be eaten straight away and is delicious, even if a little (or very) hot. I guess the variety of chilli used will make a difference to the heat level.

This has gone down an absolute storm... even with it's blow your head off properties. I am eating it with pretty much every meal and all jars are now spoken for. I will definitely be making this again.

Pickled Peppers

I pickled some chilli peppers today, which simply involved removing from the plant, making sure they were clean and blemish free, putting them in a sterilised jar and covering them with pickling vinegar... easy peasy!

In the past I have just left them to dry out, but I thought I would try preserving them differently this year.

Pumpkin Chutney

So, what do you do when a pumpkin peaks far too early?.... turn it into chutney of course.

As per usual, I had to amend the recipe to suit the quantities of my produce so based on the size of the pumpkin this is what I used:

1 1/2 lbs pumpkin
1/2 lb ripe tomatoes (I have plenty of those!)
1/2 lb onions (I used a red onion and some shallots)
2 cloves garlic (small ones)
1/2 pint malt vinegar
2 oz sultanas
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tbsp salt
3/4 lb soft brown sugar (I used dark)

This is what I did:

Chopped up the pumpkin, tomatoes and onion / shallots, crushed the garlic and placed in a pan with the sultanas and half of the vinegar.

Put on a low heat and simmered until the pumpkin was soft... the recipe said this takes about 30 minutes but mine took a bit longer.

Added the salt and spices and simmered some more... the recipe said for 15 minutes, but the pan was getting a bit dry so I simmered for less than that.

Stirred in the sugar and the remaining vinegar, continued cooking until it thickened, stirring occasionally.

Left it to cool a little bit then decanted into warm sterilised jars and sealed.

And the taste? Sweeter than other chutneys I have made so far, but very tasty.

More Cucumber Preserves

I made another batch of cucumber and apple chutney yesterday, but this time I followed the recipe more closely, so I used

2 lb cooking apples
1 lb shallots
2 lb cucumbers
1 pint malt vinegar
1 lb demerara sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne pepper

I also used a food processor, so the ingredients were finely chopped rather than chunky.

I also pickled some more of them a week or so ago.

Cucumber production has slowed down considerably though, so I don't think I'll be preserving any more this year.

Cucumber & Apple Chutney (Spicy)

Cucumbers keep on coming, so I was back in the kitchen earlier in the week to make a chutney. This is what I used:

1lb cooking apples
1/2 lb shallots
1lb cucumbers
1/2 pint malt vinegar
1/2 lb sugar (was supposed to be demerara, but I didn't have enough so mixed it with granulated)
1 tsp salt (was supposed to be 1/2 tsp - doesn't seem to have affected it though)
1 tsp cayenne pepper (as with salt it was supposed to be 1/2 tsp as I was making half the quantity in the recipe - that's why I'm calling it spicy!)

This is what I did:

Peeled, cored and chopped the apples. Peeled and chopped the shallots (was supposed to be finely, but I'm not very good at fine chopping - maybe I should be calling this chunky & spicy chutney). Deseeded the cucumbers and chopped - once again, should have been finely!

Put it all into a pan with the vinegar and brought to the boil.

Simmered until soft (about 20 minutes)

Added the sugar, salt & cayenne pepper, and stirred to dissolve the sugar.

Left to simmer until it reached chutney consistency (about another hour), stirring every now and again to stop it sticking.

Decanted into warm sterilised jars while it was still hot, and sealed.

It does taste lovely... if you like it spicy!

Pickled Cucumbers

Cucumbers seem to be growing by the minute... I check them in the morning and they aren't ready, by lunch time they need to be picked!

So, pickling some of them seemed to be a good idea, and this has been the easiest recipe so far. All I needed was:

Cucumbers
Salt
Spiced Vinegar (I cheated a bit and used a ready made one)

This is what I did:

Washed and dried this many cucumbers

Cut them into chunks and placed them in a bowl, layering them with salt

Placed the bowl in the fridge for 24 hours.

Rinsed well and left to drain

Packed into sterilised jars and covered with vinegar

They should be ready to eat in about 4 weeks.

Gooseberry Jam

I stripped the gooseberry bush of fruit this morning with the intention of making jam. I filled a colander which surprised me as there didn't seem to be that many on the bush.

I found a recipe, and had to adjust the quantities to match the weight after I had topped and tailed them, so this is what I used:

2 1/2 lbs gooseberries
1 1/4 pints of water
1 1/4 lbs granulated sugar
1 1/4 lbs jam sugar (with added pectin)

I did half and half of the sugar because by all accounts gooseberries have enough natural pectin in them so you don't need to add any... I still thought it best to supplement it though.

This is what I did:

Placed the gooseberries in a pan with the water

Simmered until soft, which took about 20 minutes

Although, I thought there was far too much water in the pan, so decanted out about 3/4 pint. I took it off the heat, added the sugar and stirred to dissolve it

Then placed it back on the heat to boil rapidly

Apparently it should only take about 5 minutes to set, but mine took about 30 minutes to get a jam consistency. I stirred it periodically and also removed the scum that settles on the top. It also changed colour from green to red.

I potted up into it into warm sterilised jars while it was still hot, using my recently purchased jam funnel

and sealed them.

This was how it looked on a scone, when still warm... yummy!

Marrow & Ginger Jam (with a hint of chilli)

I wasn't expecting to be posting on here so early in the year, but it just goes to show, you never know what you might find yourself doing on a Wednesday morning?!

My freezer has been stocked with a jumbo marrow that I grew last year and had absolutely no idea what to do with. I don't even like marrow... it was more of an experiment to see how big it would get.

This was it in all it's glory:

So, a quick search on the internet discovered a couple of recipes for marrow jam with varying quantities of ginger & chilli, so I decided to have a go. This is what I used:

3lbs (approx.) frozen marrow
4 apples (empire)
juice of 2 lemons
large piece of root ginger
4lbs jam sugar (with added pectin)
2 large red chillies

and this is what I did:

Peeled, cored and cubed the apples, placed in the pan with the already cubed frozen marrow.

Cooked without adding any extra liquid until tender, crushed everything together and added the lemon juice.

Peeled the ginger, chopped it in half and threw it in the pan along with the whole chillies.

Brought the mixture back up to simmering point, removed from the heat and stirred in the sugar until it dissolved.

Returned to the heat and brought it back up to boiling point, gave it a stir and let it simmer...

simmer some more...

and simmer some more...

... until it finally thickened up (about 2ish hours) and it actually looks and tastes like jam. Then removed the ginger and chillies.

I shouldn't really be surprised because I did pretty much follow a recipe or two, but I suppose because I used frozen marrow and have never made jam before I was expecting it to go wrong.

I decanted it into warm sterilised jars while it was still hot, and sealed them. I think it looks quite impressive if I do say so myself.

The kitchen needs a good clean though... mental note, must get a funnel; attempting to spoon hot jam into hot jars is a dangerous and messy business!