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.

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

Green Tomato Chutney is one of those things that you almost hope you don't have to make (apart from that it's delicious). It would be so much nicer to eat all the tomatoes in the red and juicy state that they should be, however the recent wet summers mean that there are often green tomatoes left at the end of the season. This is an ideal way to use them up.
I've never seen green tomatoes for sale anywhere, although I wouldn't be surprised if you could get them at some larger farmers markets. The ones I used were the last stragglers from the greenhouse, there were a few orange and red ones in there as well.

These pickled onions should provide a bit of warmth when they are ready in the new year, the spicy pickling vinegar is added to by tucking a few chillies in the jars.
I used up the remainder of a 5 kg bag of onions I recently bought for the bargain price of £3.75, much more cost effective than buying small bags from the supermarket.
The first half of the bag had gone in making sweet pickled onions.

After the success (I hope) of making pickled onions last week, I've been keen to make some more, so hopefully we've got enough to last us the whole of next year. I picked up a 5kg sack of pickling onions from the local fruit and veg shop, along with 5 litres of malt vinegar, the plan being to try out some different mixes of spices and flavours.

Rhubarb was one of the first things we planted in our new vegetable garden when we moved in. I don't think I have ever bought rhubarb in the shops, and had therefore probably not cooked with it since leaving home. Now every year (apart, for some, in the breastfeeding ones) we can get very excited about the first new shoots and then the sudden abundance. It does very well in our clay soil, and the surplus is often given away in an attempt to limit the amount of crumble consumed (for weight reasons, as I can easily eat a bowl cold for breakfast).

I had settled on making some Rhubarb and Ginger Jam with the rampant rhubarb from the garden, and had then been further inspired by the post on the veg plotting blog. As the recipe called for crystallised ginger it seemed sensible to have a go at making this myself first. I have a recipe for it in The Complete Book of Small-batch Preserving, although it being an American book it calls it candied ginger.