This evening hubby and I have been processing more of our produce. I have finally used up the courgette, runner and french bean glut, although I fully expect for that situation to have reversed within a few days.
We made a sweet piccalilli, which hubby loves and has been known to hide the last jar so that he can eat it as secretly as possible and not have to share with his pickle loving wife!
I would like to say that I grew those cauliflowers, sadly I did not, cauliflowers seem to be a bit of a problem, its something I am going to concentrate on during my winter reading, I aim to have nice big cauliflowers next year.
There was a lot of fiddling and faffing of the recipe with last minute adjustments but it seems to have worked out nicely, we made about 12 pounds. I shall write it out and put it on Utterly Good Grub.
Then we needed a recipe that wasn’t too labour intensive and having found a 2 pound bag of frozen tomatoes from last years crop, we settled on a bean and tomato stew with plenty of olive oil and garlic which made six containers. It was a joint decision to mix the runner and french beans together, its probably something I would not present to guests, but for us lot, its going to be absolutely fine with a pork chop and plenty of mashed potatoes. 
And then the shallots and button onions were calling to us, so I mixed up a sweet and spicy white wine vinegar mix and prepared a few shallots and onions for Christmas. I don’t bother with brining, I have done this before and every time I have the onions have gone soft, so I don’t bother now.
blossom and sunshine 
Mmmmm it all looks yummy – where do you get your jars from? I have been looking for the “clip” ones everywhere!p.s. can I have your picalilli recipe???? pretty please??
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Hi Ali,These jars are from Ikea, they are not the best quality in the world, but will have to do. I am looking around for some Kilner jars at a reasonable price, easier said than done. I’ll write up my recipe in the next couple of days and post it on Utterly Good Grub, (my other blog), glad you like it.. 🙂
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I would love your recipe for pickled onions. I did the brining and they are all soft and it took me so long to do it all!!!!
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Hi Amelia,I’m afraid I didn’t take careful notes, as I just tasted the vinegar to see if it was sweet enough for what we wanted. Roughly and this is not an exact science, the quantities were 1500 ml of white wine vinegar, 5 to 6 oz of white sugar, 1 heaped teaspoon of dried chilli flakes, 1 heaped teaspoon of black pepper corns and 1 1/2 teaspoon of black mustard seeds. Bring it all to the boil and then let it Cool, otherwise it may make the onions soft before pouring over the onions/shallots in there jars. We steralised the jars first. HTH
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I have found the kilner jars! We went to Peter Jones today (Sloane Street in London) and they had them there so I bought 3 x 0.5ltr ÂŁ3 each and 3 x 0.75ltr ÂŁ3.25 each, which I think is a good price compared to my recent web searches!
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