Holiday Cooking

 

Why does Autumn make us crave casseroles and comfort food?  My local Sainsbury's had a good meat deal and I worked out the best value was 3 chickens for £10.  Chickens were Freedom Food certified and Scottish.  A couple of hours in the slow cooker produced a rich chicken stock and enough meat for a dozen meals at least.  The bones and carcasses were tossed back into the slow cooker and another night of slow simmering produced yet more delicious stock for soup and sauces.

These apples came from a friend of my lovely mum.  Her trees had produced more than she could cope with.  They're not great tasting (similar to Golden Delicious) so along with some plums from my mum's neighbour's garden they're currently simmering away into Apple and Plum Chutney.

 

Apple and Plum Chutney

 

2 large onions, chopped

1kg apples, peeled/cored/diced

1kg plums, skinned/stoned/quartered

50g sultanas

450g dark brown sugar

500ml vinegar

1 tbsp salt (or less according to taste)

1/2 tsp chilli flakes

2cm piece ginger, grated

1 cinnamon stick

6 cloves

 

Add everything to a large pan and simmer until pulpy (about an hour).  Remove cloves and cinnamon stick.

Pour into warm sterilised jars.

Store for 3 months before using.

 

Edited to say it has filled 7 x 227g/8oz jars

 

 

 

My lovely mum also gave me a bag of pears from her garden.  So I've also started some Pear Liqueur.  Recipe here Not tried anything alcoholic with pears before so will be interested to see how it turns out.

 

None of the above was on my to do list this week.  I'm on holiday for a week and have still got some kitchen finishing off to do.  It's nearly done! But I'm telling myself that the fruit needed to be used up so I had to cook them.  And I could say I've started my Christmas preparations ;-)