Thanks to Mrs. B from Stonehouse for the winning name for our Valentine’s Jam Competition.  A case of Ma Cherie Amour – Cherry and Amaretto Jam – will be on its way to her shortly.

This lovely, deep red, gorgeous flavoured jam, the perfect gift for the one you adore, will be available at selected stockists and on our website from the middle of January.

We were delighted with the large response we had to our ‘name the  jam’ Valentine’s Competition.  The competition is  now closed and we will be announcing the winning name after Christmas.  Thanks to all those who took the time to enter. The jam will  be available through our online store and via selected stockists for a limited period leading up to Valentine’s Day.

We have also been busy conjuring up a lovely new jam with a real local feel to it.  Pear and Elderflower Jam will be made from the amazing, large, heritage pear variety ‘Catillac’ from The Rococo Gardens in Painswick, lightly flavoured with Elderflower Cordial from nearby Bottle Green Drinks.  This will be a ‘limited edition’ jam, available in a neat 227g jar from mid January.

One of the things I love about Christmas is the chance to try out our different chutneys with various cold meats and cheeses.  If our fridge and storecupboard are anything to go by there will be a couple of weeks when they are bulging with the foodie presents we have bought for each other (and ourselves!) not to mention the inevitable left-overs.  So here are a few suggestions:

Turn left over cold turkey into Coronation Turkey with our Apricot Chutney or Hot Mango Chutney, mixed with mayonnaise, tomato puree, curry powder and a sprinkling of slivered almonds. Oh, and don’t forget Cranberry Sauce – good with cold as well as hot turkey, and particularly delicious in turkey sandwiches.

So many chutneys go well with cold ham, but my particular favourite is Sweet Plum and Date,  served with a hot baked potato and salad.  If you prefer a chutney with a bit more bite, then Spiced Apricot and Orange also works really well.  And if you are cooking a gammon, warm up a little of our Port and Redcurrant Sauce to serve on the side – you will be loved for it!

Our recipe for Spiced Tomato and Apple Chutney was given to me by my grandmother and this is what she always served with cold roast beef.  And don’t forget the mustard and horseradish (which is also very good with smoked salmon).

For cheese accompaniments I would recommend the following:

Fig and Plum Relish with soft goats cheese, Red Onion Marmalade with blue cheeses, Ploughman’s Pickle or Old Spot Real Ale Chutney with a nice strong cheddar or double gloucester

Bon Appetit!

I know we haven’t even reached Christmas yet, but here in the world of food manufacturing we’re always looking ahead.  Which is why we are launching a competition to choose a name for a VALENTINE’S DAY jam.

If you think you can come up with the perfect name for a lovely red berry jam please email me

 barbara@kitchengardenpreserves.co.uk marking your email Valentine’s Competition

The winner will receive a case of six jars delivered in time for Valentine’s Day.

Here are some tasty serving suggestions for Bonfire Night:

Sausages with Thai Chilli Jam or Red Onion Marmalade. 

You can either coat the sausages halfway through cooking or for an easier life, put the Thai Chilli Jam or Red Onion Marmalade in a bowl on the side, put your sausages on sticks, and dip in.

Puff pastry squares with cheese and Fig and Plum Relish

Roll out some puff pastry, coat with a thin layer of Fig and Plum Relish and grate some cheese on top.  Place in a medium oven and cook until the pastry is puffed up and golden and the cheese has melted.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool a little before cutting into squares.

Jacket potatoes with cheese and mustard filling

Bake some jacket potatoes and when cooked, halve and gently scoop out the middle, leaving the skins.  Put the cooked potato into a bowl while still warm and mash with some grated cheese, a little butter or olive oil, and some mustard.  Taste as you go along and adjust quantities to suit.  Choose from Wholegrain, Coarse Grain with Honey, Wholegrain Real Ale or Tewkesbury Mustard.   Return the mixture to the potato skins, put back in the oven and cook until just browning on top.

At the recent Cheltenham Literature Festival we enjoyed listening to Clarissa Dickson-Wright talking about her new book ‘ A History of English Food’.  I find it fascinating the way that history changes what we eat and how food itself can change history.  She told a great anecdote about battles being lost because soldiers deserted their posts when their beer ration ran out, and a fascinating story of Eleanor of Aquitaine travelling on crusade with her ladies and bringing back new exotic spices from Jerusalem which dramatically changed the way food was seasoned.

In the world of preserving there are some interesting tales to tell too.  The origins of the word ‘marmalade‘ are often debated, but my favourite is the one about Mary Queen of Scots who was given preserved oranges to cure sea sickness – the word ‘marmalade’ coming from the French ‘Marie est malade’ (Mary is ill).  Chutney comes from the Indian word ‘chatni’.  Typically chatni was not cooked, but was a mix of fruits and spices left out in the sun to mature.  Chutney as we know it today was brought back by the British from India but given the poor chances of maturing outside in our chilly climate, was cooked instead with vinegar and sugar to help the preserving process. 

Mustard has been made in this country for many hundreds of years but not in a form that we would recognise today.  There was reportedly a ‘mustard house’ in Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire and from there came the famous Tewkesbury Mustard a version of which we make at Kitchen Garden.  Our Tewkesbury Mustard comes in a jar, but in those days you would have purchased your  mustard as a ball of mustard paste (the seeds having been ground in a stone mortar using a cannonball) which you would then reconsitute with vinegar or verjuice – a sour juice made from grapes or crab apples. It was not unknown for these paste balls to be coated in a thin layer of gold leaf for the more affluent customer.

Food, like language, changes and evolves at an ever increasing rate, as more of us travel and use the internet.  We are fortunate to have the opportunity to eat and cook with ingredients from around the world, blending them with our own indigeneous produce and giving us the chance to be endlessly creative.  Thanks in part to Eleanor of Aquitaine, we no longer need to go on Crusade to spice up our cuisine!

Apple Day – 21st October – will soon be here again.  There’s nothing more British than an apple, and there are so many varieties grown here, only a few of which are available in the supermarkets.

I’m not an expert on apple varieties, but one thing I can say is that apples, particularly the good old Bramley, make some of the best chutneys.  Apples can be found in our (appropriately named!) Autumn Apple Chutney, Organic Spiced Apple with Mint Chutney and Spiced Tomato & Apple Chutney as well as Old Spot Real Ale Chutney, Organic Country Fruit and even our Beetroot Chutney.

To celebrate Apple Day we have devised a little recipe which can be made using any of our apple based chutneys:

I had an enjoyable few hours at the Woodlands Garden Centre yesterday sampling our products in the excellent Food Hall.  Thanks to Jane and Chris for making me feel welcome.