If you’re anything like us this year you will have been left with quite a few tomatoes that are either grimly clinging to the plants or sitting stubbornly green on your kitchen windowsill ….. with no sign of giving in and turning red.   Ironically, we have a wonderful harvest of apples which we couldn’t possibly keep up with despite our five a day target…… So, combine the two and add a few bits and pieces and you have a marvellous Green Tomato Chutney which will keep you smiling right through to Christmas and those lovely post-Christmas dinner nibbles that we can’t resist!  Thought you might like to have a go …..

Ingredients

15g root ginger, finely chopped (I had none in .. unusually … so used a tablespoon of lazy ginger), 2 birds eye chillies, finely chopped, 2kg green tomatoes, chopped, 500g apples, peeled, cored and chopped, 250g raisins, 500g shallots, peeled and chopped, 500g brown sugar and finally, 570 ml or 1pint of malt vinegar.

Mix everything together in a preserving or heavy based pan.   Bring it to the boil and you will see the sugar slowly dissolving – at that point turn down to a simmer and let the mix thicken until you are happy with it – I found that the liquid just slowly disappeared and the right consistency was reached after about three quarters of an hour.

A friend told me an easy way to sterilise your jars – half fill with water and put them in the microwave until the water boils!   Be careful when removing them though!  DO label your chutney – its such a proud moment when you bring your own label produce to the table!

Had to share my Sunday with you … it was nothing short of idyllic, simple and what a bonus – we didn’t spend a penny!  The sun was peeping out from some very promised rainclouds and we thought (my partner Ben and I – oh, and Holly the terribe terrier – never to be left out of anything) we’d pick up a couple of carrier bags and go for a stroll along the lanes blackberrying, having spotted several promising spots on my way home one evening.  It does seem a bit late in the season – we thought we’d missed the boat, but there has obviously been a late flush .. worth investigating, we thought.

How competitive are men?  At first, we walked together, spotting a likely area of hedgerow and descending on it gleefully … but how soon this camaraderie disappeared ….. I noticed Ben wandering off ahead of me, and when he found a treasure trove of beautiful black jewels glistening and hanging temptingly in reach, he didn’t shout me over – oh no, into his bag they went …. it soon became a battle of wits for the sharp-eyed.  Who would have the most in their bag at the end of this walk?  Who could work out which was going to be best route across the field – which hedge to walk to ?  Of course, being a woman I couldn’t resist the challenge and became equally sneaky and jubilant when I found a cache of these wonderful ripe beauties – defying brambles and nettles at my peril (and later regret, of course!) until both us were sporting purple fingers and scratches.  Triumphantly we returned with heavily laden carriers to be tipped out into the sink for washing and sorting.  Of course, comparisons were made – it was a draw, it was diplomatically decided – after much serious discussion about the amount of greenery we had both collected with our bounty.

So our Sunday evening meal saw a really simple apple and blackberry crumble for pudding, which we enjoyed all the more because most of it was free (our own apples, of course) and the extras are now sitting in the fridge, until we decide whether it should be blackberry gin for Christmas, (in view of the lack of sloes this year) or blackberry wine (which neither of us have ever had a stab at – and really quite fancy) or perhaps some delicious jam, which I discovered last year was much easier than I had thought…… watch this space!

Quite amazing how the older I become, the faster time seems to be flying by …. a fact confirmed by all of my same-age-but-in-denial friends.   So another Sunday materialised with some free time …. and instead of being in pursuit of blackberries this week, Ben, Holly and I took ourselves off to Delamere Forest in Cheshire and spent a very lovely sunny autumn morning walking and collecting fallen chestnuts.  We were accompanied by our neighbours, Tom, Georgia, and their two children Joe and Jessica, and an additional four legged friend (Tinka – the skateboarding dog as seen on our website).   Flushed with success and heaving pockets, hats etc. (we had not planned to collect chestnuts!!) we returned home and joined forces to polish off a rather nice Rioja and eat roasted chestnuts ….  delicious – and mostly free entertainment again!   I was reminded of the big wide world later that afternoon when my youngest son called me from Madeira to tell me he was setting sail (yacht racing) for Cape Verde – and it was so warm he was sitting on deck with no shirt on, looking forward to the start of his race.   It felt strange when we compared how we were spending our Sunday …….