Jars of chutney with their wax seals in place, all ready to be labelled and delivered to my mother-in-law's for the Church market day.

Yes, that is a bottle of Jack Daniels in the background, and no my husband and I are not turning to heavy drink, at least not on week nights - its the special ingredient in last week's banana bread which I made again yesterday to take to a friend for afternoon tea. It was just as delicious second time around! Yay!

Its raining again and the only thing for it on a cold and wet day is to stay home, catch up on some reading, watch a load of recorded stuff on the foxtel IQ and cook up a batch of Apple Chutney for the church market day.

I love this recipe, I clipped it from the Sainsbury Magazine that I used to buy with my groceries in London. I loved that magazine and almost every month I would end up tearing the magazine apart and saving most of the recipes.

This recipe is from the September 2005 magazine in a section called Cooking with Confidence concentrating on pickles and chutneys. I absolutely LOVE chutneys and can think of nothing nicer than a plate of crackers, some mature, crumbly chedder and a jar of chutney. I like strong flavours, the tang of vinegar mixed with a sweet and spicey combination and this recipe has all those components.

I have adapted the recipe by substituting granny smith apples for the bramleys it calls for and when I am making a batch for gifts (last Christmas) or church, I double the quantities and just cook it for a couple of hours longer.
Apple Chutney

1kg apples, peeled and cored
3 medium onions, peeled
4 cloves of garlic, peeled
95g piece of ginger, peeled
1x 500ml bottle of apple cider vinegar
1x 500g bag of dark brown sugar
315g raisins
1 cinammon stick
1 tablespoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt

Pulse the apples in batches until finely chopped, add to large saucepan.
Pulse the onions, garlic and ginger until finely chopped, add to the apples.
Add the vinegar, brown sugar, raisins, cinammon, mixed spice, cayenne, 1 1/2 tablespoons of salt and 100mls of cold water.
Bring to the boil, stirring frequently, then reduce the heat and simmer for 1-2 hours until the vinegar has evaporated and the chutney is reduced and soft. Watch that it doesn't stick.
Preheat your oven to 150C and heat your clean, dry jars. Remove the cinammon stick from the chutney and fill the jars while the mixture is still hot.

I like to seal the jars with melted wax and I have a cheap, little saucepan that I use to melt plain candles down. I pour this onto the cool chutney and then screw the lids on tightly.

This chutney is good the day after but matures well and tastes great after a few weeks. The recipe says that it will last for up to a year if kept in a dark, cool place.

Recycling vegimite jars with zuchini pickle, or courgette as us non-aussie folk would say! Did you know that Ready Steady Cook in Oz has red tomato and green capsicum? How peculiar!
The pickle turned out well, but the best was the apple chutney I made. I was cooking for my mum-in-law's church market day so I only kept one jar for us and I am halfway through that already... its so good!