We had a really nice afternoon yesterday at Urma’s house, making summer chutney, gooseberry relish and blackcurrant jam, none of which I’ve made before. There were five of us and I was a complete novice (apart from some distastrous strawberry jam so many years ago I have conveniently forgotten about it…) so it was quite exciting.
Most of the ingredients were local (not the malt vinegar or spices and we had to use tinned tomatoes) – the gooseberries and blackcurrants had been frozen last summer and needed using up as the new lot came in. The ingredients for the summer chutney came from 
Adrian Izzard at Great Abington (he has a stall in the Sunday market) and were absolutely delicious (my first yellow peppers and aubergine of the and almost the first courgettes) – they were really too good to put into chutney, which is a way of using up a glut later in the season, but we wanted to try chutney now – it tasted like sweet-and-sour ratatouille and was absolutely delicious!I’ve put the recipes for the summer chutney (actually it was called Mediterranean chutney in the recipe book, but we thought summer chutney sounded better for an Eating Local project!) and the gooseberry relish in the resources section of the website, so you can see them here.
How much did we make?
We made six pots of summer chutney, six of blackcurrant jam and four of gooseberry relish which meant we all got to take three or four pots home.
We’re planning to another session later on to catch the plums and then the apples and tomatoes. Urma’s neighbour has so many apples, she just gives them away and I always have loads of green tomatoes to use up quickly before the blight gets them at the end of the season (or earlier, if we’re unlucky!). It’s the kind of thing it’s much more fun to do with someone else! You are welcome to join us!
For information about CCF’s home preserving sessions, click here.
Posted by Bev
