woensdag 23 maart 2022

Yummy Chunky Chutney Recipe

 In our Too Good To Go bag (something to blog about in the future!) we got three UFO's. (Unidentified Fruity Objects). Were they weirdly pale apples? Or were they weirdly apple shaped quinces? Some hitherto undiscovered fruit we know nothing about? 
Doesn't matter. If it's fruit, it'll make chutney. And I figured you'd like a recipe, because my daughter just pretty much ate her fingers when she tried it!




Ingredients to make one good sized jar: 

Three big cooking apples (yeah, I'll go with apples. But hey, you take anything you like!)
One medium sized onion
A nice big handful of sultanas/raisins
Honey
Apple vinegar or any different type of vinegar
Pepper
Neutral olive oil (or any other oil you prefer)

Chop the fruit and the onion up nice and fine. You don't blender this or anything so the final result will be as chunky as you cut this! Throw the fruit, onion and sultanas in a cooking pan with maybe a tablespoon of olive oil and put it on a low fire. When it's getting warm you add some vinegar. I added just a splash of raspberry vinegar here and I added some apple vinegar at the end (it's probiotic and healthy, so I didn't want to cook it much. If you want to keep this chutney long term, it's probably a good idea to add it now!)
Really, you can't easily go wrong with this, so go to town on it. I'm sure balsamic would be yum too, for instance. I also added a generous grinding of black pepper at this point. Black pepper aids digestion and tastes yummy, but is completely optional. And I added half a tablespoon of honey, because my daughter has a very sweet tooth. 
Now, as long as the fire is low enough you can quite happily walk away from this and come back to stir it every fifteen minutes or so. Simply let it simmer gently until the apple and onion are completely soft, which will take maybe an hour or so. At this point I added a tablespoon or two of apple vinegar, to taste. 

And that's it! Just let it cool and sit it in a nice pot, and Han's your uncle (well, my uncle is Han. I don't know who yours is ;-))


N.B. If you want to keep this long term, make sure your pots are sterilised and use a sterilising method after filling your pot, such as wecking. In our house it will definitely get eaten soon, so I didn't have to worry about that. 

dinsdag 15 maart 2022

Oorlog en worst

We lopen in de Lidl.
Buiten schijnt de zon blij. Het is lente-achtig, en druk. Mensen hebben haast, om waar te komen? Sommigen duwen, blijkbaar is het onbeleefd-dag vandaag. Ik zoek naar pinda's, naar blikken, naar worst. We laden het mandje vol onbekende producten. Ik gooi paracetamol en ibuprofen bovenop de gedroogde worsten en blikken met fruit en tonijn. Misschien toch iets enigszins gezonds voor ze, straks in de kou. We pakken tampons, tandpasta, zeep. Er trekt een rilling over mijn rug. Wat een gewicht. 

We rijden naar het inzamelpunt met vuilniszakken vol warmte. Jassen, dekens. Sjaals, stevige schoenen. Spullen even snel ingezameld in de straat en eigen kasten. Er staan pijlen op de grond die ons wijzen naar mensen die het in ontvangst nemen. Ik stamel nog iets als veel succes. Wat kun je zeggen?

Want ik mag weer naar huis, naar mijn veilige plek, waar niemand bommen op gooit. Waar de kachel nog aan mag en eten in de koelkast staat, wat ik vers mag bereiden. De worsten niet, die gaan naar kou, naar conflict, naar gevecht. 

Thuis moet ik ervan huilen, want God, wat vind ik het erg. 

Karl Jenkins zei het het mooist: Better is peace, than always war.