Spiced Beetroot & Orange Chutney

I found the recipe for this in BBC Good Food Magazine late last year and made a batch then. It was so good that I immediately made another and used up the last of my home grown beetroot.

A batch is fairly large and makes 8 x 8oz jars - plus about 1/2 a jar to spare. This year, I've purposely grown extra beetroot simply to make this. It went down a bomb in hampers last Christmas. It's gorgeous with biscuits and cheese or cold meat and fresh bread - or with salads. I think we went through about 4 jars when visiting my mum's last Christmas holidays in under a week !

I modified the recipe a bit to suit what I had available. It worked so well, I've contined to do so.

1200g raw beetroot, peeled and diced into small pieced
300g raw carrots, peeled and diced
3 onions , chopped
3 medium bramley cooking apples
zest and juice 3 oranges
2 tbsp white or yellow mustard seeds
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tbsp ground cloves
1 tbsp ground cinnamon

700ml cider apple vinegar
700g granulated sugar

Cook all of the above in a very large pot or maslin pan until juices are reduced and beetroot tender. I think it took about an hour. Bottle into sterilised jars.... I used 8.

I made one batch a day or two before I made the caramels and have never got round to posting the photos or recipe. If you like beetroot, you'll adore this. I think this is my favourite way of eating beetroot ever. My husband isn't a fan of the stuff. He's away camping tomorrow, so dinner for me may just have to be some homemade crackers with cheese and this glorious, heavenly beetroot chutney.

Sarah-Jane Nash - silicone bakeware http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ / wood burning stoves from http://www.naturalheating.co.uk/

Baked Trout with Fennel & Orange

I do cook savoury stuff all the time - but rarely blog about it.

There are a lot of things I want to try, but rarely cook as my husband really isn't keen on a fairly wide range of ingredients. For example, he doesn't like fish or meat on the bone. He doesn't like fruit and wouldn't consider fennel.

You can guess I was the one eating this and he had pizza last night !

Beautiful little rainbow trout - simply stuffed and baked in the oven. I used our fantastic new silicone food ropes / ties to hold it together.

These little food ropes are utterly fantastic and a direct alternative to string in the kitchen. They are reuseable and very easy to tighten and release. Being nice and bright (available now in blue, green, red and hot pink) they are easy to see. They also don't bind into your meat or fish and are very easy to undo. Also ideal for securing open bags of rice, sugar and pasta that otherwise have a life of their own !

 These come in a sets of 4 for a mere £2.25

When I cooked a stuffed roll of pork belly with crackling the other week, I could undo and remove the silicone food ties with one hand ! No trying to dig string out that's got buried into the meat.... or slicing it up to find bits of sting hidden in the gravy.

I also used them for tying a bouquet garni of elderflowers for the gooseberry jam earlier this month.

I gutted, washed and dried the trout - then stuffed with finely cut fennel and a couple of slices of orange. Little seasoning and a drizzle of olive oil - then into a 180deg C fan oven for 15 mins. Turning over 1/2 way through the cooking time. Photo directly above was after I turned it over. The skin had stuck to the roasting tin, but the silicone food ties held the fish and fennel stuffing nicely together.

Simply served with salad , it was a lovely and fresh evening meal

Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ July 2010