As an aid to introductions at the hen's party tomorrow night, we've all been asked to bring an item for Lauren's pantry beginning with the same letter as our first names - prizes given for originality.
I initially intended to re-label a bottle of red wine as 'Robyn's Reserve Red' and create a lengthy description on the back using as many r-words as possible. I was quite enthusiastic about the idea at first, but when it came to making up coherent, relevant sentences using only r-words, I couldn't put together a version I was satisfied with.
The hen's party was getting ever closer, I wasn't getting any further with the wine description, so I started to think of other possible pantry items. Ideally, I should make something from the Edmonds book, but I didn't think there was anything starting with 'r' that I could pass off as a pantry item. Without much hope, I picked up my Edmonds book to flick through the jam and pickle chapters - just in case.
As I thought, the only 'r' recipe was raspberry jam, and I'd already made that. There weren't any recipes beginning with 'r' amongst the pickles, chutneys and sauces.. but there was a tomato relish (p234)! How about 'Robyn's Relish' as a pantry item? Homemade, too - that's got to count for something!
I hadn't left myself much time to get it made, though: by the time I bought my ingredients, I only had today to make the relish. The tomatoes and onions have to be salted and sit for 12 hours - a difficult length of time, if you're doing it during the week - so I was up at six this morning, chopping onions and blanching tomatoes.
The tomatoes and onions had produced quite a bit of liquid by the time I got home this evening. I poured this off and put the vegetables in a pot with some brown sugar, chillis and malt vinegar. This mixture bubbled away happily for an hour and a half while I pottered about preparing jars and making nibbles for the party.
When the boiling time was up, I mixed together a paste of mustard powder, curry powder, flour and vinegar, and added that to the pot. Another five minutes' boiling, and the relish was ready. I'd only done a half-recipe, which turned out to be exactly the right size to fill two of the jars I had prepared.
After the jars had cooled down, I took the larger one, and prettied it up a little with a cover and a label. Robyn's Relish: one pantry item beginning with 'r', ready to go. Now all that remains to be seen is whether someone else has come up with something better!
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