Tag Archives: jalapenos

Mangoes and Memories – A Lovely Chutney

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There are times I would love to live in other climes.  If they got rid of the excessive heat and humidity.  My mum used to head down to Florida as a child in the early 50’s.  I can’t imagine the heat in the car all the way down the east coast without A/C.  But when she got there Grammy Kevin had mango trees.  What a treat that must have been fresh off the tree with the juice dripping.  I love the sweetness of the mangoes but they go well with spice.  It’s a great ingredient to work with. 

As I mentioned in the last post for hot pepper jelly my husband and I indulged in a kitchen day.  We take the day to just create and enjoy being with each other.  I love those days.  🙂  Our next treat was mango chutney.  We got the recipe from the “Best Ever Curry Cookbook” by Mridula Baljekar.  We’ve had some great meals from that cookbook.  As with the hot pepper jelly it wasn’t difficult to make but the flavours are wonderful.

To begin with you want as many fresh ingredients as you can find.  We doubled the recipe so that is what I’ll tell you for this post.  It made about 5 half pint jars worth.  We found some really nice mangoes and fresh ginger yesterday at the co-op.

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Cut 6 mangoes into chunks.  If they are a bit firm that is ok.  Heat in a large pot with 1 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar.  Cover and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. 

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In the mean time prep the other ingredients.  Finely chop 2-3 cloves of garlic, grate about 2″ of ginger, and finely chop two small hot peppers.  We used jalapenos from our garden.  My fingers burned for several hours with the pepper juice after all our recipes!  Also, bruise 5 cardamom pods.  The recipe also calls for 1/2 tsp of coriander seeds crushed but we didn’t have that so we used a bit of ground coriander.  And you will need 1 bay leaf, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1 1/3 brown sugar.  After the 10 minutes add all the ingredients to the mangoes and apple cider vinegar.

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Slowly bring to a boil then lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.

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Follow the standard jarring techniques.  It did say to leave for a week before eating but we tasted it and it was amazing so it would be hard to wait a week!

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I’ll need to make some naan now.  🙂

 

 

 

Roasted Jalapeno Grilled Cheese Sandwich

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Last week I was stumped about what to do for dinner.  I didn’t want to do anything complicated nor did I want to do the same old thing.  It was like I had writer’s cramp.  I searched through my pins on Pinterest and finally inspiration struck.  Grilled cheese!  I made 3 kinds.  A Jarlsberg with bacon for the kids, another for me which I’ll post about, and then this recipe for my husband.  All were served with salad.

The recipe I took inspiration from was a Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese.  Of course I changed it and this is what I made:

First I needed to roast the jalapenos.  I sliced two and took the seeds out.

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I placed them under the broiler until they blackened.

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One tip from the recipe I found was to place them into a plastic bag to steam while cooling.

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In the meantime I cooked up some bacon for the sandwiches.

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When the peppers cooled it said to pinch the skins and lift off.  Right.  Not so much.  So either I didn’t broil them enough or whoever came up with this tip has been very lucky thus far.  🙂  I had to spend a few minutes peeling the skin off.  It was a bit messy.  I also used a good aged cheddar instead of goat cheese as my husband isn’t much of a fan.  He’ll eat it but I know he likes cheddar better.  Place the jalapeno peppers over the cheese.

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Top with bacon.

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Make sure the outsides of the bread are buttered then grill them in the skillet.  We have a hand held cast iron griddle press that we heat up and put on the top of the sandwich to heat both sides.  Turn halfway through cooking.  Remove from the heat and cut in half.

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It’s a bit of a roll of the dice on how much heat you get with this sandwich.   I had to store buy the peppers given it’s winter so they didn’t seem to have the heat.  I have a feeling if we used fresh grown ones they would have held up to the cheddar a lot better.  But my husband enjoyed the sandwich so I will make this again for him.