Winter Chutney Making

[Cheese Head]

Back in Vancouver, Canada, visiting my Mum, made a "Winter Chutney" with her based on the recipe here, scaled up 3X.

INGREDIENTS

• 2-1/4 cups (550 mL) quartered pitted prunes
• 2-1/4 cups (550 mL) quartered dried apricots
• 3 onions, chopped
• 3 tart apples, peeled and finely chopped
• 1-1/2 cup (375 mL) chopped drained seeded canned tomatoes
• 1 cup (250 mL) granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup (175 mL) cider vinegar
• 1-1/2 tsp (7 mL) ground ginger
• 3/4 tsp (4 mL) ground cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg
• 3/4 tsp (4 mL) black pepper, cayenne pepper, and salt.

DIRECTIONS

• In saucepan, bring prunes, apricots and 3 cups (750 mL) water to boil. Remove from heat; cover and let stand for 30 minutes.
• Stir in onion, apple, tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, black and cayenne peppers and salt ; bring to simmer.
• Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 50 to 60 minutes or until thickened.

RECORDS

• Changes to above during this batch, canned tomatoes had tiny seeds in, used fresh finely diced 1" cube of ginger, used malt and white vinegar. Canned into hot jars at 250F in oven.
• Simmered for ~70 min until thick, prunes fell mostly apart, apricots re-hydrated and large, would cut into sixths next time.
• Made 11.5 cups, not the 6 as per recipe.
• Tasted spoon after canning, very sweet, next time would cut back on sugar.

[Tomer1]

Where are the chillies?

[Cheese Head]

Good question, especially we live in Texas (none in this recipe)!

[Tomer1]

Its a great way to preserve fruit in the season.
What do you use it for?  I like it as a side dish with lentals and rice (and chicken if its not a vegi meal,unfortunatlly lamb is too expenssive and goat is really impossible to get)

[DeejayDebi]

Man that looks good John - all my favorites in there!

[Cheese Head]

Tomer1, to be fair the apricots and prunes were already preserved, but was still fun. Will use a relish/condiment for cold cheese platters and on boring veg like jacket potatoes, will probably take a while which is not good as I also want to make a Branston Pickle relish.

Debi, thx!