Nature’s Bounty

Our produce from our small raised summer garden is coming to an end, with the last of the tomatoes appearing on the plants.  We have been carefully watching our green peppers plants (capsicums), and these needed staking when the peppers seemed too heavy for the fragile stems.  The three large green peppers seem to have taken ages to grow, and now was the time to pick them, I decided.

I wanted to cook up some Capsicum Chutney – but my three home grown peppers were nowhere near enough.  A quick trip to the veggie store to purchase some more and I had enough to get slicing and cooking.  I used a mixture of green, red, yellow and orange peppers and made seven smallish jars.  This (sweet) chutney is delicious with cold meat, or on crackers with cheese.  Perhaps if you have some growing, you may like to try making some too.  The quantities are easy to halve if you wish.

Capsicum Chutney and bags of rhubarb

Capsicum Chutney

4lb capsicums

2lb brown onions

5 cups brown vinegar

6 level tablespoons salt

3lb sugar

Cut peppers open, discard seeds, slice finely.  Peel and finely slice onions.  Place together in large bowl and sprinkle with salt.  Leave for 2 hours then rinse well  in colander under running cold water.  Drain thoroughly.  Place into preserving pan, add vinegar and sugar.  Bring to the boil and boil for 45 minutes.  Allow to cool then bottle in sterilised small jars.  Cover and seal.

Our rhubarb plants are also doing very well, so I harvested some of this as well.  I chopped the stalks up into small dice and have three bags full ready to freeze to cook up later.  We enjoy stewed rhubarb for dessert with custard or icecream, and even on cereal for breakfast.