Green Bean Chutney

This chutney recipe is one you don't come across very often. If you grow green beans though it can be a very useful way of using up excess crop. Strictly speaking it is more of a pickle recipe but you thicken it with flour to get a spreadable mix.

Ingredients

2.5 pounds green beans cut up small. Remove hard strings and pointy ends if they are tough, otherwise just chop them up.
2 pounds soft brown sugar
1 small cup dry mustard
2 tabsp turmeric
1.5 pints vinegar (white)
1 cup plain flour
celery stalk.

Method

1. Cook the beans. (leave crunchy)
2. Make the mustard, turmeric and flour to a smooth paste with a little vinegar.
3. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar and then stir in the flour paste. ( It is easier to add the vinegar to the flour a bit at a time until the flour mixture is thin enough to pour straight into the warmed vinegar, or you get a claggy mess.)
4.Boil for five minutes and then add the beans and finley chopped celery. Cook for a little longer and then pot.
5. This chutney tastes better when aged for at least a month.

By varying the flour amount you can get a thicker or thinner mix. Try adding chilli for a spicy mix. If you want a true chutney for you green beans try piccallili or chow chow.

For a more varied pickle I have added chopped cauliflower.

I've just been sent an alternative to try.

Ingredients

2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
Black seeds from 15 cardamom pods
1 tsp ground cumin
1tsp fenugreek seeds
half tsp chilli flakes
120ml vegetable oil
2tbsp granulated sugar
100ml white wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
750g runner beans, trimmed and cut into 1-1.5 cm chunks

Method

Gently cook the onion, garlic and spices in the vegetable oil for 3-4 minutes without colouring until soft. Add the sugar and vinegar, season and simmer for a couple of minutes. Add the beans, cover with water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 30 minutes. Remove from the pan, leave to cool and store in sterilised jars in a cool place for up to a couple of months. If you want to keep the chutney longer, the jars should be vacuum sealed.

I've not tried this one yet but it does sound more like the real deal chutney wise.

How do I test the setting point of jam?

Many people are put off jam making because the recipe says "boil until setting point is reached". It is not really a great mystery when this is. I made jam for many years without a thermometer using a simple spoon test.

To test if your jam has reached setting point take a small amount from the boiling jam pot and drop it onto a cold saucer. Allow it a few seconds to cool and then push it with the teaspoon. the jam has reaches setting point when it sets on the saucer, which is visible when you push it.

If you make a lot of jam it is worth buying a jam thermometer. These clip on the side of your pan and are marked at the various temperatures needed to set jam, jellies and toffee. ( I had marvellous brass one which got lost on one of my moves, and now I have a cheap tacky plastic one.) They both work equally well but the brass one looked nice hung in my kitchen!

Plum jam

If you've ever tasted commercial plum jam and shuddered I can only encourage you to try this recipe, and just taste the difference. It is absolutely astounding how different this jam tastes from the yucky stuff available in the shops. (I would also encourage you to try plum crumble, you may never feel the same about apple crumble again.) Jam making is looked on as a bit of a mystery but it is very very easy indeed, especially if you buy a thermometer to test the setting point.

Ingredients

4 pounds (1.8 kg) fresh ripe plums
1 1/2 cups water
6 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice

Method

1. Chop and stone the plums. Don't peel them, the skin is where the colour comes from and you don't notice it in the final product.
2. Mix all the ingredients together in a pan and bring to the boil, boil for about twenty minutes until setting point is reached.
3. Pour into eight sterilized jars.

Squash pickles.

I only grew squash for the first time last year, and found it was one of those feast or famine veggies that you tend to get a lot of at once. My children weren't that keen either then I found this recipe, which is perfect with cheese or as a side dish. (picture courtesy of tinyfarmblog.)

Ingredients ( for about two pounds)

2 pounds firm yellow summer squash
2 small onions
1/4 cup salt
2 cups white sugar
1 tsp celery salt
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp mustard seed
3 cups cider vinegar

Method

1. Wash squash and slice thinly.
2. Sprinkle squash and onion in salt and cover in water. Leave for two hours and drain.
3. Mix together the rest of the ingredients and bring to the boil and add the squash and onions. Leave off the heat for a further two hours.
4. Bring to a gentle boil and warm for five minutes.
5. Pack the vegetables into warmed sterile jars and top with liquid.

Sweet Chilli Sauce

I just love this recipe, when you taste it it starts off with a sweet taste and then you get a straight chilli kick. This tastes far better than any sweet chilli sauce you could ever buy.

This recipe makes about a half litre, which I put into jars but the consistency is pourable if you have sauce bottles.

Ingredients.

500g very ripe tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, peeled
4 red chillies
2 tsp grated ginger (from a jar is fine)
30ml fish sauce
300g caster sugar
100ml red wine vinegar

Method

1. Dice half the tomatoes.
2.Blend the rest of the tomatoes, garlic, chillies, ginger and fish sauce until you get a puree.
3. Mix the puree with the sugar and vinegar in a large pan and bring to the boil. Stir slowly.
4. Reduce to a simmer and add the diced tomatoes.
5. Cook for a further thirty to forty minutes removing any scum that forms.Stir occasionally.
6. Pour into warmed, sterilised glass jars.

Green Tomato Chutney

Any-one with a vegetable patch will know the feeling of joy as tomatoes begin to appear, and then the feeling of despair as they keep appearing in a good year. This is an excellent way of using green tomatoes if a plant falls over, or if you just think there are too many on a plant and need to remove some.

Don't be scared by the ingredient list it is really very easy.

1.5 pounds green tomatoes
1 pound green apples
8 ounces coarse chopped onions
1 tablespoon salt ( 15ml tbsp)
4oz raisins
1 pound soft brown sugar
8 fluid ounces cider vinegar
rind and juice of two lemons
2 tablespoons mustard seeds
2-3 chopped deseeded red chillies ( make sure you know how hot they are!)

In a muslin bag:
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
2 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 teaspoon allspice berries
1 teaspoon cloves
2 crushed cinnamon sticks

Note: About the muslin bag...I used a piece of a clean pillow case last time and that worked well, any porous clean cloth will do.

1. Peel and chop the tomatoes.
2. Peel , core and chop the apples and add the peelings etc, to the spice bag.
3. Put the tomatoes, apples, onions and salt into a large pan and bring slowly to the boil. Simmer for twenty minutes.
4. Add the raisins, lemon juice and rind, sugar, vinegar and spice bag and return to the boil. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and then simmer for thirty minutes, or until the mixture is nice and thick.
5. While the mixture simmers wash out your jars and put them and the lids into a low oven to sterilize.
6. Add the mustard seeds and chillies and pour mixture into warmed jars. Seal and leave for one month before eating.

I have to admit that I often don't peel the tomatoes, just give them a good wash. Green tomatoes are difficult to peel, and I am often using small " windfall" fruit. The skin doesn't alter the flavour and isn't really noticeable in the finished product.

The mustard seeds are optional, some people don't like the texture. The chillies can also be omitted if you don't want their kick in the finished product.

Harvest Bean Soup

Very filling, very easy and very good for you. This vegetarian soup is very easy to cook and eat but the best part is that it freezes well.

1 tablespoon oil
1 large onion
3 stalks celery
2 diced carrots
3 garlic cloves, or according to taste
1 tablespoon dried oregano, or two fresh chopped
800g can chopped tomatoes or equivalent fresh skinned tomatoes
3 cups water
400g can canellini beans or a cup each of chosen dried beans
300g can butter beans
100g fresh green beans


When I make this soup at home I soak a cup each of dried beans overnight before making it and finish cooking them as the soup simmers. I vary the quantity of beans and the variety depending on my mood and whats actually in the larder, but they should be roughly the same size as each other to cook evenly.

1. Fry onion for two minutes until tender then add celery, carrot, garlic and oregano if dried.
2. Stir in tomatoes and water and bring to the boil. Simmer for thirty minutes. Add all beans and organo if fresh, simmer for another two or three minutes.

You can add some fried bacon for a sort of mock minestrone effect.