A first time for homemade chutney

Clare O kindly shared some of the bounty from her veg garden and pressed a load of tomatoes on me - some ripe and some green.  My first intent was to make Lina's recipe for green tomatoes under olive oil - but then realised that half the toms were very ripe and had I put them under salt I'd be left with nothing after the liquid drained off. Hence Plan B - chutney.

I mixed the chopped tomatoes with some chopped apple and shallots plus some raisins and sultanas, added mixed spice and ginger and cooked it in a syrup of brown sugar dissolved in white vinegar. I think - as I was guessing at quantities by eye - I rather overdid the vinegar and sugar solution, so had to simmer if for 3 hours before I got to the required viscosity - you test a chutney not with a cold saucer - but by running the wooden spoon across the bottom of the pan - it needs to leave a clear trail so you can see the base of the pan without the mixture quickly collapsing in on it. This took a very long time! Rather appropriately for chutney,  I happened to pass the time by watching an Indian film  (highly recommended : Lagaan - all about a momentous cricket match in the days of the Raj I can testify to being a complete non-cricket fan but I  loved it!)

Anyway I digress - the chutney is now bottled up and I'll have to leave it for a couple of months before seeing if it tastes as good as it looks.

Oh and by the way the kitchen smelled WONDERFUL!

Loads of advice from our main site on preserving and making jams and pickles

Clare F

Can we pester you for your pesto ideas?

Don't you love pesto? It's so easy to make when the basil is in season, but the jars are also fantastic stock cupboard stalwarts. You can use pesto for lots more than making pasta al pesto.

The team at Make it and Mend it decided to celebrate the versatility of pesto by asking everyone to send in their favourite idea for using pesto. We've contacted the people at Sacla' and they've very kindly given us some nice pesto recipe cards and some recipe/ shopping list notebook and pen sets to give away to the first people to respond (UK addresses only I'm afraid) - all the details are on our website.

We plan to publish the recipes on the site when we have them all.


Meanwhile to get the ball rolling here are a couple of recipes sent to us from Lina, one of our readers in Milan Italy.

Pasta double sauce:
Prepare a simple tomato sauce with olive oil, an onion and fresh tomatoes (pomodorini) or peeled tomatoes, plus salt &pepper. Heat on the hob for about 20 minutes. When the pasta is cooked al dente add the tomato sauce and 2 small spoons of pesto

Lasagne with pesto (for 2 people)
Ingredients: 8 lasagne sheets (to make 3 layers), pesto (fresh basil leaves, garlic, Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, pinenuts, salt, extra-virgin olive oil), besciamella sauce (white sauce: 25 g butter, 25 g flour, 250 ml milk, nutmeg), extra-virgin olive oil, salt. (If you like, you can add some ricotta cheese too)

1. Prepare besciamella with butter, flour and milk. Add a pinch of nutmeg powder at the end and stir well.
2. Prepare a good pesto (or get your jar ready).
   
3. Cook each lasagna sheet for 4-5 minutes .
4. Take a small oven tray, put some extra-virgin olive oil on the bottom and cover the surface with 2 lasagne sheets.
   
5. Put some pesto on it and then some besciamella sauce and sprinkle with grated Parmigiano.
   
6. Put other 2 lasagne sheets and pesto, besciamella and Parmigiano. Continue like this until you finish all the ingredients.
   
7. Put into oven and cook at 180 C for 20 minutes.

This feature has now closed - but we will be shortly publishing the recipes you sent on our website.