Home Made Mango Chutney

Totally worth it, it is soooo delicious!  It is also such a nice cold-wet-weekend-afternoon sort of job...

2.25lb/1kg ripe mangoes (sometimes they get sold off cheap if they are a bit over-ripe, this is perfect for chutney, otherwise you might need to leave them a week or so snuggling up with some bananas to get them to ripen)

1 large cooking apple, peeled and grated

1 onion, finely sliced

1 red chilli (big or small, depending on how hot you take your chutney!), finely sliced

3 large cloves garlic, crushed

thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, grated

2tsp nigella/black onion seed

0.5 tsp each of the following: 

coriander seed

tsp cumin seed

cardamom seeds

turmeric

0.25 tsp each of the following:

ground cloves

ground cinnamon

350 ml distilled (white) malt vinegar

0.5tsp salt

1lb/450g granulated sugar

First cut up the mangoes and place the flesh in a bowl with the apple.  I started off fiddling about with knives and cutting nice cubes and things, but actually it was a lot easier to just scrape the flesh from the skin using my fingers.

Find a very large saucepan!  Fry the onions in a large glug of oil until soft and golden, then add the garlic, ginger and chilli and fry for a few minutes.  Meanwhile, measure out the spices.

Turn up the heat slightly, add the spices and fry for a few minutes, stirring constantly.

Add the apple and mango and simmer for 25 minutes.

Add the salt, sugar and vinegar and simmer a further 25 minutes until the whole lot is pulpy and thick.  Stir regularly towards the end of the cooking time to prevent it sticking and burning on the bottom.

Place in hot sterilised jars and leave for 4 weeks before enjoying at every opportunity!  (I may or may not have got impatient and started scoffing after 2 weeks and it was extremely delicious even then, so the waiting isn't too important!)

Distraction Tactic #3

Nothing like getting out and about for a bit of distraction!

My parents came to stay for a few days this week and I took the opportunity to go and visit a few new places with company.  It was sooo lovely going out and looking at things with someone else, I've hardly been anywhere since Edward left because it just isn't the same visiting places by myself.

So anyway, this is what we got up to.  

We sat by the sea front and munched fish and chips in lovely sunshine (that was actually warm) and it was completely glorious.

I love the cloud shapes on the horizon.

The sunshine was, unsurprisingly, short lived, so the next day we went on rather a soggy walk on Dartmoor.

It was still stunning and the clouds did all sorts of beautiful things. 

We also went on another soggy walk to Mount Edgcumbe.  You have to take a little ferry across the river which is very exciting.

Isn't this a nice inspiring clock?

In case you can't read it it says:

'Dost thou love life?

Then do not squander time.'

Off you go, seize the day, time and tide tarry for none...

We found a nice little beach covered in fab pebbles to skim across a perfectly flat bit of sea.

The pebbles were such beautiful colours and patterns.

We saw an oyster catcher with a gorgeous orange beak.  Terrible photo sorry!

I managed to come home with only a few pebbles in my pockets instead of the usual half-a-beach-full.

We also went and rummaged about in Tavistock which is such a nice little town.

The weather couldn't quite decide what to do so switched irritatingly between lovely and horrible.

And then they left and now I am all alone again.  I did make the most of the sunshine on Saturday to start a bit of digging in the garden (I was hoping to start and also finish, but it turns out that digging is a lot slower than I anticipated).  I had some lovely and very helpful...ish helpers to keep me company though which was nice.

I had Gertie's second egg for lunch, with a few other bits and bobs...  Just the thing you need when doing hard digging-y sorts of things.

There seems to be an entire tor's worth of rocks in the soil, hence the slow progress.  But it is making me think of Spring and growing things which is very exciting and inspiring.  I know it's still only February but I am bored of the winter now...come on Spring!

Bloggiversary!

It suddenly struck me today that I started this little blog around this time last year and that it would be nice to do a jolly sort of anniversary post to celebrate.  So I rummaged about through the depths of the bloggy beginnings and discovered that my first post was in fact a year ago exactly to the day!  On top of which, this happens to be the one hundredth post, so pretty exciting and co-incidence-y all round.

Also the lovely Gertie laid the first egg of the year.  It's very cute.

I had a beautifully sunny visit to see a friend in Bournemouth on Saturday which seems just the thing for a celebratory sort of post.

I left quite early and enjoyed a glorious sunset all the way down.

I think I'm slightly obsessed with enormous skies at the moment, they are so exhilarating after being cooped up with all this dull grey sogginess.

There was quite a bit of water about, but luckily the roads were pretty clear.

(Can you spot the curly-tailed cloud-creature?!)

The wind had made amazing sand dunes all over the place.

Everything seemed extra bright in the wintery sunshine.

I love the coral pink and mustard-y yellow next to the the slate-y grey in the pebbles.

Having been well blustered about we felt justified in eating an enormous pile of fish and chips.

Then I drove home and enjoyed a glorious sunset all the way home; a perfect end to a lovely day!