In a pickle

There's something very wholesome about making chutney. I've just spent an hour or two dicing courgettes, apples, plums and onions - all off the allotment or out of the garden apart from the plums which were from a garden I look after - and now it's blupping quietly on the stove where it'll stay for the next three hours until it magically transforms into comforting, warming chutney.

I'll leave it a couple of months to mature before we eat it, as it mellows beautifully if you leave it a while. This is my first venture into real diced chutney - last year I pickled several pounds of runner beans and the result was a bit chunky, but it tasted so good I've now got the preserving bug good and proper. There's nothing better, or more pleasurable, for dealing with the inevitable glut at this time of year.