By admin
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December 19, 2008
We’ve done a couple of batches of this, and are giving a few jars as Christmas presents. It’s gorgeous, especially with strongly flavoured cheeses such as Stilton, hard goats’ cheeses (such as the Ribblesdale “Superior Goats”, Northumberland Cheese Co.’s Elsdon or Brinkburn, cheddar.
The original recipe was from BBC Good Food. I’ve adapted it to include some cider 
Ingredients
- 1 large pineapple (around 1kg ish), peeled/cored and roughly chopped
- 1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
- One or two large cooking apples (about 500g total), peeled/cored and chopped
- 140g of “ready to eat” figs, chopped
- 5cm of fresh ginger, grated
- 2 tsp of mustard seeds
- 1/2 tsp of grated nutmeg
- 1 tsp of salt
- 350ml cider vinegar
- 150ml dry cider (we used Strongbow but you might like a more traditional cider)
- 400g demerara sugar
- Put the pineapple chunks in a blender and pulse blend until a mixture of puree and small cubes.
- Place in a large pan with the apples, figs, onion, ginger, spices, salt, cider and cider vinegar.
- Bring to the boil and cook fairly fiercely, stirring, until the apple chunks break down.
- Add the sugar and stir in.
- Cook, stirring frequently, for another 30mins or so until the chutney is “gloopy”. Pour into sterilised jars (you’ll need about 5 x 450g jars), seal, cool and then chill in the fridge.
By Paul
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October 6, 2008
By Paul
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September 29, 2008
We had masses of green tomatoes this year. Becs made jam, and I made some green tomato chutney. Can’t remember where I got the recipe from but this tastes amazing!
Ingredients
2.25kg (ish) green tomatoes
500g onions
25g salt
250g raisins
250g sultanas
25g fresh ginger
4 red chillies
500g demerara sugar
500ml pickling vinegar
- Wash and finely chop the tomatoes, cutting out the hard bit where the stalk joins. Peel and finely chop the onions.
- Place the two together in a bowl, sprinkle with the salt and leave for at least an hour; ideally overnight.
- Bring vinegar and sugar to the boil.
- Roughly chop the raisins and sultanas.
- Add tomatoes and onion mix, with the raisins and sultanas. Put in the ginger (just as a big lump - I put it in straight from the freezer where I keep ginger) and the chillies (whole is fine - you will fish them out later).
- Bringback to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for an hour or so with the lid off.
- Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Leave in the fridge for at least a few weeks for the taste to develop.
Great with cheese!
By Paul
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September 29, 2008
Here’s photos from our trip to Portugal to see Dan, Pilar, Alex and Marco in September this year.
This is another Lebanese-style dish that I’ve been making for a few years but not got around to posting. Even if you don’t like aubergines, you’ll like this as the cooking removes the chewy texture you tend to associate with aubergines.
I really like it cold the day after, as the flavours come out even more. Perfect with pitta, hummous, tabbouleh.
Ingredients:
- 2 large aubergines, firm skinned as you can get
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped
- 2in fresh root ginger, grated (I keep the ginger in the freezer; it’s easy to grate from frozen)
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- Chilli powder or half a red chilli, chopped
- 6 tbsp clear honey
- Juice of a lemon
- 1/4 pint hot water
- Olive oil, salt
Peel and then slice the aubergines into 1cm (ish) slices. Salt and grill (in batches if necessary) until very brown on both sides. Don’t worry if they char a bit - it adds to the flavour.
In a big frying pan, flash fry the garlic for 30seconds in olive oil. Add the aubergines (again, in batches if necessary), cumin, ginger, water, honey, lemon juice and chilli (if required). Tip: mix the honey, water, lemon, ginger and cumin whilst the aubergines are cooking. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 10mins. If you are doing batches, extract the first batch from the sauce to a serving dish, and then add the next batch. The sauce should end up being like a thin gravy in consistency - add more hot water if required.
This recipe was inspired by Claudia Roden’s Tamarind and Saffron cookbook (highly recommended).
I was so amazed by this BBC story about Seahorses in the Thames that I had to blog it.
Colonies of rare seahorses are living and breeding in the River Thames, conservationists have revealed.
Experts at London Zoo said the species had been found at Dagenham in east London and Tilbury and Southend in Essex, over the last 18 months.
Here’s photos from our trip to see Dan, Pilar, Alex and Marco in March this year. The photos are from around Nairobi, Aberdare National Park, Amboseli National Park and Maasai Mara National Reserve. I got quite into taking photos of birds, as you will see.
By Paul
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February 8, 2008
Spring seems to have arrived very early this year. We’re getting into photography again in readiness for the trip to Kenya, so we’ve been out and about the house taking some pics of the early spring colours.
Here’s the first few on Flickr!
By Paul
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November 9, 2007
We went to Hurghada at the end of October with Jon, Katia, Tom and Hannh for a week. We managed to get in 7 dives (including one night dive) - here’s some pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulandbecs/sets/72157602912393082/
I have some videos including octopus, a giant moray and some silly underwater antics that I’ll upload to Youtube soon.
