Beetroot Chutney

[Hillbilly]

Handy way of turning usual glut of beetroot into something tasty (apart from wine that is) - note - tastes a LOT nicer after 3 or 4 months in a cool, dark place.

Ingredients
2lb grated raw beetroot
1lb o chopped red onions
1 1/2 lb cooking apples peeled cored and sliced
1lb seedless raisins
40fl oz malt vinegar
2lb sugar
2 tbsp ground ginger


Bung the ingredients in a large pan and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 1-2 hours or until thick and pulpy meanwhile, prepare the jars. Spoon the mixture into clean, sterilized jars, cover, seal and label.

I also added grated carrot to one of my batches and it came out nice too.

[hedgewitch]

Mmmmm yummy!
I'll give this a go when mine are ready to harvest

[Shirley]

beetroot wine??!! Now... do you have a good recipe for that??? PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

I use raw grated beetroot along with raw grated carrot as a salad - and grated beetroot in coleslaw produces a scrummy pink coleslaw MMMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Hillbilly]

Ah ha! yes I do!

3lb beetroot cut up into small cubes
3lb sugar
6 cloves
!/2 an oz shredded ginger
1 lemon
1 gallon water
wine yeast


Bring cubes to boil in half the water with zest of lemon and simmer until beetroot is tender but not mooshy. Strain onto sugar, lemon juice, cloves, and ginger. Add rest of water into bucket (or whatever you use) and stir well to dissolve sugar. When cooled to 20/21 C, dissolve yeast in a little warm water with a wee tick of sugar. Cover well, andleave in warm place for 3 days. Stir once a day.

After 3 days strain through coarse muslin into dark demijohn (off that site i gave you a link for if you don't have one) and fit airlock. Rack when clear and bottle in dark bottles. Store in dark place. Your first taste can come after a year.

Absolutely AMAZING served diluted with a little homemade lemonade by the way. Don;t know why it 'works' but it does.

[Shirley]

yum! Sounds great.

Another to add to the list. Notice you have AIM - don't suppose you have msn messenger too??

[Millymollymandy]

Just had a quick look at your blog, Jo! I was surprised though to see you have alkaline soil - I thought it was all granite rock and acid soil up there around Aberdeen??

[Shirley]

lots of acid soil here and plenty of granite - some areas have red sandstone though - not sure whether that makes a difference or not.

[Hillbilly]

I was surprised too and so we double checked and its definitely alkaline. I would like to know why but the geological/soil type maps of this area held by my ex boss are not detailed enough.

In our naievity we wondered if it is possibly because the farmer who owns the feild behind us puts a lot of lime of the feild. We are on a slope towards the river and in that way of any runoff from feild. Would this be sufficient to change the PH of our soil?

Shirlz - No sorry I don't. I only use AIM cos it springs up anyway when I log onto AOL. Feel free to email though :)

[Millymollymandy]

Jo - I don't know about the run off but wouldn't have thought it would make a difference except perhaps at the edge of your property. Mind you, why is he liming the soil if it is alkaline?

The best way to tell is to look around the neighbourhood. Do you see rhododendrons and camelias in people's gardens? That's a good way of knowing there's acid soil in that area!

Not sure about sandstone, perhaps that is alkaline. ?

Sorry I digress from beetroot chutney!

[Hillbilly]

No no rhoddies or anything that loves acid soil. Farmer adds lime to reduce acidity of soil as some of the fertilizers raise the levels..

What I must do this week is get a few more kits and test round front of house (away from any influence from field)....

[Millymollymandy]

I need to test mine again. I did one test but I cheated and took the soil from a molehill and the test came out alkaline! Now I've got a rhodo and a camelia and so does everyone else round here......... I really wondered if cat pee was alkaline (my cat at that time, soon after moving in, was spotted using the molehills as a convenient kitty loo)? Or mole pee? Strange!

[Hillbilly]

You have me thinking now - in fact after wee one woke at 4am this morning for a feed, I couldn't get back to sleep for thinking about it. I came to several conclusions

a) I tested near the top of the garden nearest the field.
b) I tested (what used to be) the bonfire site by accident (would that make it alkaline?)
c) The water I used was tap water - YES I KNOW you should use rain water but it wasn't raining and I was in a hurry. But then with acid rain, wouldn't it make it a higher acidic reading?
d) This is a localised soil anomaly.

Much pontificating going on here and not much constructive work being done LOL!

[Millymollymandy]

Well I think this is why they say in the instructions to take several samples of soil from all around your garden and mix together to test it!!!

Don't know about bonfire ash.

I think I might make a new post and link to this because there's probably few people (who might know) reading this cos they maybe don't like beetroot chutney!

[Millymollymandy]

I've started it as a new thread in the Hints and Tip section asking for advice!