I'm mostly over the cold through a combination of everything below but in the midst of it all I got given about 4kg of plums (and kilo's of apples) and my tomato plants suddenly produced a glut of ripe red tomatoes. Soft fruits do not wait out colds. Soft fruits sit around and rot. So I got bottling.
A poor, poor picture but from left to right I have plum mincemeat, plum & apple chutney and roasted tomato ketchup. They are all from this book, again. Really, I can't recommend it enough. I have to say though that I did make fairly heavy changes to the chutney and the ketchup mainly to do with my own tastes and what I had in the house. They are all winners. Really delicious. Here's a quick breakdown of them all:
The mincemeat is not suet laden like most and contains predominately fresh fruits rather than the usual dried. It's sweet but the sourness of the plums also comes through. I'll keep this until just before Christmas and then make tarts or perhaps sweet pasties, I'm not sure yet.
The chutney is divine. I've never liked chutneys which are a mixture of sultanas, raisins and currants, why put so many similar fruits in it? I changed it for a mix of raisins, apricots and prunes. So much nicer. Raisins must be picked over to remove stems as one stem ruins it all for me. Likewise the apples in it have to have all the core removed. Finding a bit of the hard core is like finding a toenail. Yuck! Again, sweet but sour and it goes with...everything. We had it with beans on toast the other day and with potato wedges another. I've even put it in with hummus sandwiches.
The roasted tomato ketchup...wow! I wish I had even more tomatoes or had eaten fewer in salads. I added caramelised onions to the recipe, used some different spices, used rice vinegar and added in less sugar. I plan to make some burgers later in the week and some homemade rolls and I'll serve them up with some of the ketchup and potato wedges. Can't wait.
I also whipped up a batch of biscuits (or cookies depending on what mood I'm in). Oatmeal, raisin, walnut and chocolate chip all in one biscuit. So delicious it almost blew my head off. Seriously. They are very loosely based on a recipe from How it all vegan...although I added in some oats and altered the amounts so I had raisins, walnuts and chocolate chips rather than just chips. I'll play around with the type of fats i use next time as I want to try and make them even crisper. Sometimes I like a chewy biscuit but most of the time I want it crumbly and crunchy. ooh! I might add in some grated orange rind next time instead of the vanilla. It makes about 2 dozen so I've had to freeze them to stop us eating them all. Problem is they can be eaten straight out the freezer so it's not helped much.
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