More makes!

I've been a busy bee in the kitchen over the last few weeks, the chillies, tomatoes and apples have been keeping me chained to my stove!

So first up i made sweet chilli jam, there are hundreds upon hundreds of recipes out there but I finally went with this one from the BBC good food website, and I particularly like their description of it looking like 'thick, bubbling lava'.  I'm planning on enjoying this with some cheese, pate and crackers, mmmmm....

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/8257/sweet-chilli-jam 

Here are two jars I made, others have been dished out to the family to try. 

So even after the chilli jam I still had chillies to use... now in our house we use lots of dried chilli sprinkles - we sprinkle them on pizzas, cheese on toast, add to stir fries and other recipes. Again I turned to the World Wide Web in search of instructions, I found a really helpful site by the chilli king, here I found really helpful instructions on all sorts of things chilli related!

I fired up my oven to 80 degrees, washed dried and cut all my chillies in half length ways, and put them on a baking tray lined with baking paper, some fried quicker than others, but some took up to 3 hours, you can tell when their done as they crunch up when squeezed.  

Here are mine after a blitz in the food processor - 

2 baking trays of chillies really do shrink after dehydrating!

For more info on anything chilli, visit -

http://www.thechilliking.com  

The third recipe I'd like to share is for a Dorito style salsa dip, my family love this sort of dip with some tortillas - and certainly a favourite on a movie night. 

For this recipe I've been planning since the beginning of the year - growing everything I needed from seeds - my peppers didn't go to plan so ended up buying these. 

All ingredients were chipped added to a pan, simmered for 10 minutes and popped into sterile jars. 

I followed this recipe as s guide but my ingredients varied slightly in that I used small tomatoes, and slightly less chillies but left some seeds in as we like it HOT!

http://www.freshpreserving.com/recipes/zesty-salsa

Lastly I seemed to have a glut of tomatoes, and soup always goes down really well with my little ones, so I made roasted tomatoe and basil soup. 

Pop your freshly picked tomatoes into a baking tray along with 4 cloves of garlic, 2 quartered red onions, and drizzle over a tablespoon of olive oil and another of balsamic vinegar. Salt and pepper to season, then roast on 180 for 20 minutes. 

Next add your roasted goodies to a pan along with 750mls chicken or vegetable stock, 4 tablespoons tomato purée, 1.5 tablespoon brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of chopped basil. 

Simmer for 15 minutes. 

Cool and liquidise until smooth. 

That's all from me for today, but I am planning on apple pie tomorrow so keep an eye out for my next blog. 

First job of the day - Thai sweet chilli sauce

Now I don't know about anyone else but this sweet, sticky, spicy sauce goes down a storm in my house, even my 8 year old likes it! 

My plans for this started way back at the beginning of the year when I planted chilli seeds, they grew, they flowered, they fruited - hoorah!

Thai sweet chilli dipping sauce is delicious to dip your prawn crackers in, poured over spring rolls, or even a yummy salad - my hubby likes it over a king prawn salad, I like it slathered over a chicken and tomato salad - it turns what could be a boring salad into something to look forward to. 

So after a little research with my friend Google I've come up with my own version, which even if I say so my self is very tasty, here's what I did - i'd love any comments if you try this yourself. 

Sarah's dippy-chilli sauce

Ingredients 

6 cloves of garlic

4 chillies (heat level of your choice, I like them hot, but you can make it milder by removing the seeds)

1/2 cup white vinegar

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups water

1teaspoon salt

2" root ginger

2 tablespoons corn flour

4 tablespoons of water 

Method

Firstly add all ingredients apart from the last two to a food processor and process until everything is small enough for your sauce. 

Transfer the blitzed up sauce to a pan and bring to the boil. 

Keep stirring and simmer for 5 mins to soften all the ingredients. 

Mix together the last 2 ingredients - then add the water/cornflour mixture slowly whilst stirring, simmer for another 30secs. 

Remove from heat and pour in to sterilised jars - this makes enough for just over 500g jar. 

Enjoy!