This is a great recipe for using up a glut of damsons and green tomatoes, both of which I find can take you by surprise at this time of year.

I had for years wondered why we always produced masses of green tomatoes, usually blaming myself for not planting them out early enough, or the weather for not being sunny enough. While I'm sure these factors come in to play, I recently found out that a lot of people locally have the same tomato blight problem as we do, and while chatting about it had found out that a local market gardener has given up growing tomatoes outdoors. He had come to the conclusion that an increase in the amount of fields of potatoes in our area had caused such an increase in blight that it wasn't worth bothering.
I'd be tempted to not bother myself next year if it wasn't for recipes like this one, and the classic green tomato chutney.
They're a staple in our store cupboard and one we wouldn't go without.

Like a lot of people we always seem to get a glut of courgettes at this time of year, actually most of them are more worthy of being called marrows. We're also overflowing with cooking apples, and the tomatoes are looking like we're going have to pick them green before the dreaded blight makes it's annual visit.

All of this points towards using this excellent recipe based on the one Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall calls glutney on his river cottage blog. The beauty of Hugh's recipe is in it's adaptability, as long as you use 3kg of marrows / courgettes / pumpkins / tomatoes / apples the actual quantities are interchangeable.

With the late summer fruits starting to ripen on the trees (and fall off in the wind), this recipe is great for using up a glut of apples and plums. I actually used the last of last years frozen stewed plums from the freezer, and some windfall apples. The relative quantities of plums and apples can be easily altered within reason.

  Click here for the Plum and Apple Chutney recipe in more detail.

Some time ago when in Manchester I was tempted into buying a large box of fresh mangoes. I paid  just £3 for a beautifully packaged box of seven small ripe mangoes, complete with tissue paper wrapping and tinsel decoration. When I got home I froze them planning to make mango chutney.

Mango chutney is not something I've tried to make before, although we consume enough of it as we tend to have a curry night every few weeks.
There's a good selection of recipes on the internet, including a sweet version with raisins on bestrecipes.com.au, and one with lots of chillies at top-indian-recipes.com. One problem I ran into, which also happened when looking for lime pickle recipes, was that the Indian use of the word chutney tends to refer to preparations of fresh ingredients rather than a method of preserving.

Preserved lemons are a common ingredient in North African, and  especially Moroccan, cuisine. You can actually use them in many dishes - anywhere that would benefit from a bit of citrus flavour.  I've put together some ideas in this blog post about what to do with preserved lemons.

They're very easy to make and it costs very little to make a large jar full, especially in January and February when the new crop of imported lemons enters the UK. 

While making vegetarian mincemeat I found myself short of some mixed spice, so set about making some more from spices I had in stock. 

According to wikipedia the following spices are commonly used in mixed spice: