Busy cooking and gardening - chutney and jam

Alison and Maria were spending the day with Bridie so I had a day of rushing round the house and garden trying to get a long list of jobs completed. The good news - I managed to complete the list although I felt tired out by the end.

Kitchen - I had soaked chickpeas and red kidney beans overnight and got on making hummus with garlic, tahini, cumin and lemon juice, plus a little olive oil and water. I also used some of the chickpeas with a big red cabbage salad which went with the vegan chilli which was largely based around the kidney beans and chickpeas, homegrown peppers and french beans, tomatoes, homegrown and tinned and fresh chilli.

I had also picked a couple of tubs of blackberries with Amelia the day before and those got cooked up to make a further two jars of jam bolstered by apples picked from down the lane where there is a large apple tree laden with big fruits.

At the same time I was using some of the less standard looking tomatoes from the garden to make chutney. Again I used apples collected walking Maisy earlier in the morning along with another homegrown pepper, raisins, sugar, vinegar and ginger.

The store cupboard is looking pretty full now with plenty of jars to enjoy over the coming months.

The final activity was to blanch some french beans which were then plunged into cold water before being dried and placed in a plastic bag for freezing. I've heard they don't freeze well but we will see.

Garden - managed to cut the grass, feed the birds, clean out the fire pit, tidy the conservatory, fill in the holes Maisy has been digging, cut the hedges in the front garden, cut the hedges down the side of the house and cut the hedge at the back, sweep up and put the cuttings in the garden waste bin ready for collection today, walk the dog a further two times and pop out to pick a further couple of kilos of blackberries.

In between all the activities in the kitchen and garden, I cleaned up all of the downstairs rooms and got out for a 5km run.

It felt like I was almost running from one job to another but it meant I got ahead of things and was able to have a nice walk with Maisy in the woods in the early evening and a beer in thegarden afterwards.

I'm on the lookout for some different blackberry recipes to use them up fresh e.g. blackberry sorbet. Hope to get some photos later.