Making Chutney

It rained all weekend. Heavy cold rain that is so typical for this time of year. Sunday when Sweetie got home from work we made tomato chutney from the tomatoes we harvested from our garden at the end of the summer. I had three plants that produced about fifty pounds of the little red buggers most of which I skinned, cored and put into freezer bags for later use.

Sweet tomato chutney is basically sugar, vinegar, garlic and ginger that you simmer on the stove for most of the day until your eye’s water, the lining in your sinuses has been eaten away and your skin has a tacky feel when touched. You cook it down until it makes a thick paste and put it into jars. It takes forever and even when you quadruple the recipe like we did, having to use both soup pots, you wind up with considerably less than your delicate sinus system thinks is fair and equitable considering all the abuse it suffered.

But the end result is spectacular. It’s a taste that just explodes in your mouth, all sweet and vinegary and spicy and just the kind of thing you’d want to eat with an Indian meal or with pork or in a grilled cheese sandwich on cold rainy winter days like we had this weekend. We’re bottling it up and giving it to all our friends for Christmas this year. We did a similar thing two years ago when I last had that kind of tomato output from my garden. The labels on it said “Chubby Baby Chutney” named after our second child, the one who got the new liver.

This morning in the shower I could smell the vinegar in my hair on my skin as it trickled down the drain. Though it took all day and made its way into every crease and cranny we are still only about halfway to our goal. Sweetie said she’d try to get another double batch on today and that should leave us about one double-batch away from being finished. We have until Sunday to get it done.

We’re not sure what the label should say this year. But I don’t think naming it should be all that hard, all I need to do is come up with two or three words that summarizes our entire existence over the past twelve months and put the word “chutney” on the end of it. Should be a piece of cake, right?