As an aid to introductions at the hen's party tomorrow night, we've all been asked to bring an item for Lauren's pantry beginning with the same letter as our first names - prizes given for originality.
I initially intended to re-label a bottle of red wine as 'Robyn's Reserve Red' and create a lengthy description on the back using as many r-words as possible. I was quite enthusiastic about the idea at first, but when it came to making up coherent, relevant sentences using only r-words, I couldn't put together a version I was satisfied with.
The hen's party was getting ever closer, I wasn't getting any further with the wine description, so I started to think of other possible pantry items. Ideally, I should make something from the Edmonds book, but I didn't think there was anything starting with 'r' that I could pass off as a pantry item. Without much hope, I picked up my Edmonds book to flick through the jam and pickle chapters - just in case.
As I thought, the only 'r' recipe was raspberry jam, and I'd already made that. There weren't any recipes beginning with 'r' amongst the pickles, chutneys and sauces.. but there was a tomato relish (p234)! How about 'Robyn's Relish' as a pantry item? Homemade, too - that's got to count for something!
I hadn't left myself much time to get it made, though: by the time I bought my ingredients, I only had today to make the relish. The tomatoes and onions have to be salted and sit for 12 hours - a difficult length of time, if you're doing it during the week - so I was up at six this morning, chopping onions and blanching tomatoes.
The tomatoes and onions had produced quite a bit of liquid by the time I got home this evening. I poured this off and put the vegetables in a pot with some brown sugar, chillis and malt vinegar. This mixture bubbled away happily for an hour and a half while I pottered about preparing jars and making nibbles for the party.
When the boiling time was up, I mixed together a paste of mustard powder, curry powder, flour and vinegar, and added that to the pot. Another five minutes' boiling, and the relish was ready. I'd only done a half-recipe, which turned out to be exactly the right size to fill two of the jars I had prepared.
After the jars had cooled down, I took the larger one, and prettied it up a little with a cover and a label. Robyn's Relish: one pantry item beginning with 'r', ready to go. Now all that remains to be seen is whether someone else has come up with something better!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular posts this week
-
I've never had much luck with banana cakes. They always seem to come out overcooked on top and gooey in the centre. Yet I still make one...
-
Despite last week's fiasco with the flaky pastry, I was feeling confident as I began my attempt at sweet shortcrust pastry (p81). I le...
-
Sometimes it seems like I'm constantly choosing my recipes based on the leftovers I have in the fridge. For instance, after making tosta...
-
Since I'm yet again falling behind with the cake mix-based recipes, I decided tonight might be a good time to make easy fruit sponge (p2...
-
I had one last item to make on my Christmas baking list, before piling up trays with Christmas goodies to take to work. I'd acquired som...
-
After a long period of unseasonably warm and sunny weather, the clouds rolled in today to remind us that winter's almost here. In respon...
-
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I made beef casserole. It was nice, but I had a few ideas about how it could be improved. Since there...
-
Tonight I had a crack at the final "Quick and Easy with Rice" recipe - these being the handful of recipes using packets of Rice Ri...
-
As we all know, Sunday was Mothers' Day: another opportunity to make an Edmonds recipe. This time I selected continental apple cake (p47...
-
One of the recipes that had occurred to me as being particularly appropriate for Canada was pancakes, (p212) not because Canada is particula...
No comments:
Post a Comment