Caramelised onion chutney

I'm too tired to write a proper intro for this recipe. Why? Today I have been on a canal trip with our home educating friends, spent the afternoon in a couple of chilly playgrounds (thank the Lord for long johns!), followed by a lengthy game of football in the park. On arriving home, I had to carry two flatpack beds up two flights of stairs, help to assemble them both, then make supper. And somewhere in the middle of all that I made some onion chutney too.




Ingredients (makes 2 or 3 jars)
1.25kg onions
olive oil
4 tsps minced ginger
2-4 tsps minced red chilli (depending how spicy you want it)
4 tbsps tomato puree
100 ml red wine
2 cinnamon sticks
pinch of salt
200 ml balsamic vinegar
200g dark brown sugar

Method

1. Peel and roughly chop the onions. In a large pan, gently fry the onions in plenty of olive oil. When they have softened, add the ginger, chilli and tomato puree, and continue to fry until the onions are well done.
2. Add the wine, cinnamon, salt, vinegar and sugar, bring to a boil, reduce to minimum and cook for an hour or so, stirring frequently, until the onions begin to get a jammy consistency.
3. Transfer to sterilised jars and store for at least 4 weeks (if you can wait).

Banana and apple cake

Autumn is definitely here, and yesterday we went for a lovely long walk around Roslin Chapel, where we collected lots of sticks for wands, together with a selection of leaves and nuts. It's seven years since I have been in Scotland at this time of year, and I had forgotten how beautiful it can be. (We've been lucky, with reasonably mild temperatures and a lot of dry days.)

I usually make this with bananas only, but today is Wednesday, which means it's time to finish off any leftover fruit and veg before our new veggie box arrives. In addition to two very ripe bananas, there were also some delicious little russet apples, so I added them to the mix.

Ingredients
275 g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp salt
110 g margarine
225 g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 tart apples, peeled, cored and diced
75 ml milk
1.5 tsps lemon juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
50 g raisins

Method

1. Set the oven to 180oC and grease a loaf tin. (Mine is stuck in the cellar at the moment, hence the round cake tin in the photo above.)
   
2. Sift the flour into a bowl and add the salt.
3. In a separate bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar. Add the bananas, milk, eggs, lemon juice, vanilla extract, cinnamon and raisins to the margarine and sugar mixture, and mix well. Fold the flour into the resulting batter.
4. Pour the mixture into the tin, and bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes until golden.

Orange polenta cake

I first made this cake a few years ago, and have baked it intermittently ever since (whenever my children allow me to make something other than chocolate cake).


I took this cake along to the book group I have just joined (at Blackwell's on South Bridge, in Edinburgh). My cake was finished off almost instantly, which is more than can be said for this month's book - the diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, in which the wife of Lev Tolstoy spends 40 years complaining about her husband.

Ingredients
for the cake batter
2 large oranges
1 cup of strong green tea
6 green cardamom pods
6 eggs
150 g quick-cook polenta
150 g ground almonds
250 g golden caster sugar

for the syrup
1 orange
50 g caster sugar
50 ml water

Method

1. Place two of the oranges in plenty of water, bring to the boil and simmer for one hour. Drain the oranges, cut into quarters and allow to cool.
2. Make a cup of strong green tea, and add the cracked cardamom pods to it.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C, and line and grease a springform cake tin.
4. Peel the orange quarters, remove the pithy centre and any pips, and puree in a food processor.
5. Transfer the orange puree to a mixing bowl, add the polenta and 50g of cardamom-infused green tea, stir well and leave to sit for 5 minutes or so.
6. Add the eggs, almonds and caster sugar and beat well. Pour the mixture into the tin, and bake for about 45 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, zest the remaining orange. Make a syrup by heating the caster sugar, zest and water until the sugar is dissolved. Strain through a tea strainer to remove the zest.
8. Allow the cake to cool before removing from the tin. Prick it all over with a toothpick, and pour the syrup over it.

Apple and pear chutney

"Not impedimenta, sweetie. Expulso is the best!" Gemma is sitting on the sofa with her laptop, helping Sammy get to the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the Wii, Carmela is measuring herself against the doorpost to check whether she has grown in the last 3 days, and I am in the kitchen making chutney and listening to Fabrizio Andre singing Bocca di Rosa. (Si sa che la gente da buoni consigli se non piu puo dare cattivo esempio. People only give good advice when they can no longer set a bad example.)


Ingredients (makes slightly over 1 kg, enough to fill three 1 lb jars)
350ml cider vinegar
350g brown sugar
250g sultanas
4 tsps minced ginger
1kg cooking apples
400g pears
1 large onion
good pinch of salt
8 cloves
1 stick of cinnamon
20 coriander seeds
20 allspice berries

Method

1. Put the cloves, cinnamon, coriander seeds and allspice berries in a muslin bag.
2. Combine the vinegar, sugar, sultanas, ginger and salt into a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, and add the spices in their bag.
3. Peel and roughly chop the onion, and add to the saucepan.
   
4. Core and peel the apples and pears, chop roughly, add to the saucepan and mix well.
5. Bring to boil, reduce heat to minimum and simmer for 1 to 2 hours, stirring frequently. When the chutney can be parted with a wooden spoon to reveal the bottom of the saucepan, it is ready.
6. Transfer to sterilised jars, seal and store for at least 2 weeks (longer if possible).

Apple source
The apples for this recipe came from Bernie and Bruce, the parents of Sammy and Carmela's friend, Callum. They were knobbly little things (the apples, not Bernie and Bruce) but taste great.