Our chilli plant shave been shorn of their ripe fruits now, and we have made them into strings for drying.
We have made chilli jam with some of them and, delightfully, the plants now seem to be flowering again in the warmth of our kitchen, so there may be more chillies to come.
Threading them made our eyes water, the piercing them with the needle seemed to release a lot of spice and had me coughing a lot.
Well although not much is going on in the allotment right now we are cracking on with our Christmas gifts of chutney and marmalade.
We have apple jelly and rhubarb chutney in the cupboard from earlier this year, have just made orange and ginger marmalade (not with homemade ingredients!), and have made the first batch of tomato and chilli chutney which has our chillies and garlic in it. I got this recipe from someone on the Guardian forums and it always goes down a storm:
Sweet Chilli Jam
This makes a pathetically small amount, in my opinion. So I double it. Or quadruple it (amounts in brackets are for the quadruple amounts which makes approx 5 x 8oz jars).
2 (8) cloves garlic, chopped
2 Inch (8 Inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
3 (12) small fresh red chillies, deseeded if you wish, and roughly chopped. NB: you can use green chillis, but it may dull the eventual colour - doesn't affect the taste though.
8 oz (32 oz) tomatoes, skinned and chopped; you can use tinned tomatoes if you wish.
1 tsp (4tsp) vegetable bouillon powder
2 fl oz (8fl oz) cider vinegar
5.5 oz (22 oz) soft brown sugar.
Prepare all the ingredients down to and including the tomatoes. Put them, and the bouillon powder, into a blender and blend to a smooth puree.
Pour the puree into a pan and add the vinegar and sugar; stir well. Bring to the boil then reduce heat to a simmer and simmer for 30 minutes until thick, stirring occasionally and ensuring that it doesn't burn. Test for thickness/set on a cool plate, as you would with jam.
Cool slightly, and pour into sterilised jars and seal. If not using immediately, store in a cool dark place. Once opened, keep refrigerated.
It is lovely stuff and this batch is very hot! Our chillies are very spicy and we left the seeds in. Once we have made another 2 batches or so we will dry the rest of the chillies on strings hung up in our kitchen so that we have them for the rest of the year.
Do beware if you make this chutney as it gets very spitty when simmering, our kitchen ended up speckled with red.
My huckleberries are starting to form berries, which is exciting. I didn't think that they would start doing it so early as I thought that they would be ready around November-ish.
I'm looking forward to Huckleberry Jam now.
I collected some apples from a neighbouring plot the other day, after OKing it with the secretary. The plot isn't being used at the moment and the apples were starting to fall off the tree. I can't cope with needless waste like that so went and rescued some of them.
I had about 5 pounds in the end. I divided that up, the ones in the silver bowl are for tart tatin, the ones in the clear tub for apple sauce, and the ones laying down on the board for apple jelly. So far I've only made the apple jelly , I cooked up the apples with water and a star anise, then let the liquid drip through muslin to strain it. Then added sugar to the liquid (1 pound of sugar per pint of liquid) , stir as the sugar melts and it comes to the boil, and then you boil rapidly for 10mins . I allowed it to cool a little and then added a bit of whisky ( I used Talisker). Tastes quite good so far, but the recipe advised waiting 3 months before use.
The tart tatin is under construction as I write, I will post pictures once it is done.
I'm going to try and harvest the rest of the apples on the community work day this saturday and then anyone who wants any can take them. I'm also going to do the sauce by then so we can eat it with our sausages.
You can now see our cabbages and onions a bit better, as we had a massive weeding session around them, they seem to be doing rather well, although there are only a few onions still in.
Most of them are drying on a rack in the greenhouse. I'm glad we did it, they are the first two beds we see as we come in the gate and it is much nicer now they are free of weeds. It was also nice not to be building something, but actually getting up close and personal with the soil and plants.
But . . . on the drying and building front, we are thinking of trying to make a solar airer/dehydrator. Saw a thing on TV on the "it's not easy being green' programme, and I think we have all the bits we need: wood, glass, black plastic, wire mesh. And hopefully soon we will have lots of tomatoes, so it would be good to be able to dry some and have our own dried tomatoes to put in pasta and on pizzas. Might as well make use of the warm sunny weather while it is here.
I've plaited our shallots today, into 2 long plaits.
I'm not sure I've done it the way it is meant to be done, but it seems to work. I did a kind of french plait: starting off with 3 shallots and then weaving more into the plait as I went along to keep it going. I knew having long hair as child would stand me in good stead one day!
They are now in the greenhouse drying off a bit more; red onions are now on the drying rack.
It is hugely prolific, isn't it? I now have several jars of rhubarb marmalade and a kilner jar full of more rhubarb chutney.
I'm not sure about this batch of rhubarb chutney, it just doesn't feel quite right although I haven't tasted it yet - last week's batch was great.
I fried red onion in olive oil, added crushed garlic and coriander seeds, added the rhubarb, some sugar and some cider vinegar, and ground cumin, and this time some dried red chilli seeds. It worked last time, so just I hope it has worked again. It is certainly a good colour.
