Things are changing for me at home. My dessert partner in crime has headed off for his first year at University, leaving me at a loss of what to do with my chocolate! A good friend told me that just when you get used to them being away, they come home and take over again.
So, I'm going to wean myself off of the chocolate for a few posts, starting with some tomatoes and chillies.
A few of the chilli varieties that we grew, just look at the Friars Hat!
We had a fabulous crop of cherry, plum and tigarella tomatoes. No aliens this year as we didn't bother with the beefsteak variety. The Chillies haven't been too bad, we just need a little more sunshine to ripen them off.
I decided to make some chutney with all the tomatoes and chillies. My chutney did take rather a long time to thicken up, it all seemed to happen in the last 15 minutes. I was reassured by , via Twitter, that his chutney had taken forever to thicken up too. Other twitterers chiming in on the chilli conversation included , who wanted to know what I was going to serve it with, who was trying to scrounge a jar (sorry it only made one) and who cheerily showed me a clip of someone getting their head blown off after eating the world's hottest chilli pepper!
Of course, the clip was just a bit of fun, but had reminded me of the time when I lived in Tucson. You could buy chillies there in much the same way as you buy tomatoes here - many varieties, all fresh and piled high in big mounds. Here, you get a little package of 4, unless you go to the Asian supermarket.
Anyway, I had picked out some lovely fruity looking peppers and had roasted them whole, along with some onions. My husband popped a whole one into his mouth and started to turn a funny colour. I was insisting that it was just a sweet veggie pepper, and he was screaming at me to try one. The minuscule bit that I gingerly tried confirmed that he had just eaten a habanero chilli and not what I thought I had bought. We can laugh about it now, but at the time it was pretty ghastly as you can probably imagine!
Chilli Bomb Tomato Chutney
Adapted from dear Sherry's site, What Did You Eat.
I used a cherry bomb chilli pepper, but you can use any ripe, red chilli pepper/s you want.
¼ teaspoon fenugreek seeds
¼ teaspoon cumin seeds
¼ teaspoon fennel seeds
¼ teaspoon brown mustard seeds
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced into a fine paste
¼ cup red wine vinegar
½ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup good red wine
1 ¼ cups sugar
2 lbs tomatoes, peeled, seeded, drained, and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons raisins
1 hot red chilli pepper, deseeded and finely chopped
1 teaspoon salt
Combine the fenugreek, cumin and fennel seeds in a small bowl and set aside. Heat the olive oil in a deep saucepan over a medium heat and add the mustard seeds. Cook until they begin to pop (you may cover the pot if you want).
Add garlic and cook for 1 minute, then add the combined seeds. Cook for about 30 seconds or until aromatic, taking care not to burn the garlic.
Add the vinegars, red wine, tomatoes, sugar, raisins, chilli pepper and the salt. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered for about 1½ hours, or until the chutney has reduced and become dark and very thick.
Leave to cool and store tightly in the fridge for up to 1 month.
Printable Recipe
These cherry bomb peppers are about 1½" round
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