Tomato & Red Onion Chutney

I've only started looking into chutney recipes recently when I got it into my head that i'm going to make everyone a jar of chutney for Christmas. So rather than going a bit gung-ho a week before Christmas and end up making a right pigs ear of things, I thought having a bit of practice would probably be the best and the most sensible idea!

I had a trawl through recipes and - seeing that I had a ton of tomatoes that i'd grown kicking about - I decided on a tomato-based recipe. However, most of them had a few different ingredients like cardomom seeds and chilli that I just wasn't into in a big way. So I concocted my own recipe using the base of red wine vinegar, brown sugar and tomatoes and kind of just added anything that I could find!

This does take quite a bit of preparation so make sure you have plenty of time to do this!

I do hope that you try and enjoy this recipe as I think I actually done really well considering this is my first attempt!

This makes about two standard jam-sized jars, however you can increase or decrease the ingredients accordingly :)

2 medium red onions
750kg tomatoes
1 or 2 peppers
4 garlic cloves (crushed and chopped finely)
half teaspoon of ground ginger
1 teaspoon of dijon mustard
250g light brown muscovado sugar
1 braeburn apple (or any type of cooking apple)
150ml red wine vinegar

First of all peel and deseed your tomatoes and peppers. To peel them, plunge the tomatoes and pepper into boiling water for about 30 seconds, drain then fill with icy cold water. This makes is so much easier to peel them! Cut into quarters and remove the seeds (WARNING! Your hands will actually stink of tomatoes afterwards!)

Dice the apple and onion into small bits and slice the tomatoes and the peppers.

Add all the ingredient to a stainless steel pan (not brass or copper as it reacts with the the vinegar and leaves a metallic taste apparently) and bring to the boil stirring occasionally. Once boiling, reduce to a medium heat and simmer for about an hour.

In this time you can sterilise the jars. There is a few ways which you can do this:

  - Wash the jars in hot soapy water and rinse thoroughly. Shake off any excess water and place in the oven on a LOW HEAT for about ten minutes or until dry.

  - Place in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil. Once the water is boiling, boil for about ten minutes.

  - Or simple place in the dishwasher and fire it on a warm rinse (this is the method I chose!)

You should do this so the jars are just done and warm for when your chutney is ready.

So after the hour, the chutney should be looking a lot darker in colour and have a jam-like consistency. Like this...

It will reduce dramatically as all the ingredients sort of mush together. I left it on a low heat and stirred for about five more minutes just to make sure it was cooked properly.

I then placed into the warm jars and covered in kitchen paper until cooled. If you place the lids on right away, the condensation will settle on top of the chutney and make for a runny consistency.

This keeps for about 6 weeks.

So there you go! Some yummy chutney to make, right on time for this freeeeezing weather! It goes amazing with hard cheese and oatcakes. You could also mix up the vegetables and add or take away certain ingredients.

For hints and tips a great website to visit is here as it gives you ideas on how to prepare certain fruits or vegetables for the chutney and also whats a complete no-go for it!

How to Make Lebkuchen

Lebkuchen is a German biscuit-type treat thats meant to sort of resemble gingerbread (but FAAAARRRR better). Its a typical German Christmas biscuit and is a fantastic and really easy way to make some form of festive bakes goods :)

Plus it makes your house smell AMAZING!

Ok so what you will need is...

250g  (or 2 cups if you don't have scales) plain flour
85g (6 tbsp) ground almonds
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of cloves
pinch of grated nutmeg
pinch of black pepper
200ml (13 tbsp) clear honey
85g (6 tbsp) butter
1 lemons grated zest
100g (10 1/2 tbsp) icing sugar
1 egg white, beaten

utensil-wise you will need...

a wooden spoon/spatula
tablespoon
teaspoon
a small grater/zester
2 medium sized bpwls (make sure one is glass as this will be heated)
a saucepan that allows the glass bowl to sit on top like this....

Set your oven to 180C. That's gas mark 4 and if you have a fan assisted oven set it to 160C

Okay, so put the flour, ground almonds, ginger, cinnamon, baking powder, cloves, grated nutmeg and pepper into one of the bowls and mix them about so they're distributed evenly.

Place the butter and honey into the GLASS bowl. Next put water into the saucepan, however only fill half way (you don't want to butter and honey to burn) and allow to boil on a medium/low heat. Once slightly bubbling, put the glass bowl on top of the saucepan and mix until all the butter and honey has melted together and has created a runny golden liquid.

Add the melted honey and butter to the dry ingredients and stir until it creates a solid dough like this...

Now leave to cool for about 10 minutes as it will still be warm from the melted butter and honey. Once cooled, roll the dough into about 15/20 balls and flatten slightly.

Place on a greased baking tray (i used that spray oil stuff and it worked really well)

Then bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. The biscuits should be golden brown once cooked. Set aside to cool as they will need to be relatively cold for the icing.

Measure the icing into a bowl. So now separate the white from the yolk and discard the yolk. Beat the egg white until frothy.

Add the egg to the icing sugar and add 1 tablespoon of water.

Mix together until it has a smooth and runny consistency...

So now your biscuits are cooler and your icing is ready dip each biscuit into the icing and set aside on a tray or on a plate to dry.

It will only have a light coating of icing on it, but don't worry! The icing is REALLY sweet so if it had been any thicker it would take away the taste of the actual Lebkuchen.

These make great gifts when wrapped in tissue paper or plastic wrapping and laced in a fancy gift bag :)

Hope you enjoy making these as much as I do.