It's about this time of year that the question of what to do with the last of the marrows raises it's gnarled green head over the edge of the vegetable bowl.
The marrow is unquestionably a beast, and sadly it's culinary uses are usually limited to being stuffed, but it can make the base of a most subtle and delicious jam. Its saving grace is that it doesn't have much flavour, and while this is usually its downfall, in this recipe it allows the ginger and lemon to shine through.

It's also a pretty jam.
The cooked marrow is translucent and jewel like chunks of it float in the jar, I've adapted this recipe to include a small amount of pumpkin, which adds a stronger orange colour to the effect.

I took a trip to Yorkshire last week and was given a massive bag of these giant cooking apples by my aunt, so they made the journey back to Herefordshire. Although rather like taking coals to Newcastle they were welcome as the tree in the garden has yet to produce anything like these.

Sometimes with chutney the temptation is to through a bit of everything in just to use up as many vegetables as possible. This courgette / marrow / green tomato / apple chutney being a good example.
This time I've decided to keep it simple and concentrate on just apples with a hefty helping of spices.

It's marrow time of year again, in the past I've made marrow and green tomato chutney. I enjoy growing marrows, they always remind me of beached whales as you find them washed up underneath the courgette leaves, finding something to do with them all is more of a problem.
Most years we're swamped with green tomatoes due to harvesting them all early when the blight takes hold, but this year our tomatoes didn't get blight so we're a bit short.
This recipe uses marrows and cooking apples, both of which are currently abundant, and a lot of fresh ginger, so should have quite a kick.

  See here for the marrow and ginger chutney recipe in more detail.

Rhubarb and orange jam is a old fashioned recipe which appears in Mrs Beeton's famous cook book. It's a good alternative to Rhubarb and Ginger Jam and can be made with young or old rhubarb.

This time of year we're struggling to keep up with the rhubarb, and it's a great chance to stock up on jams and pickles early in the season. Rhubarb always seems to produce a faultless range of preserves, there's a selection of recipes here.

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.

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.

This recipe was tempting to try as another way of preserving rhubarb.
There's nothing wrong with relilable rhubarb chutney, but you do have to wait several months before it's good to eat, the advantage with this recipe is that the sweet fruity relish can be enjoyed straight away.

As a variation you could add finely chopped chilli, or try the lime and ginger version on sweet mary's blog.

Last spring's rhubarb schnapps was one of the great preserving successes of the year, so I have been keen to make some more from the moment the rhubarb in the garden started sprouting

As well as making a jar of the original version this year I have also tried a jar with added ginger. Ginger always works well with rhubarb, rhubarb and ginger jam also being a favorite, so this schnapps should be good with a extra bit of spice.

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.

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: