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The mad Englishwoman and her dog are out and about again so that’s where you’ll find me at the moment (‘Mad Englishwoman and Dog’).

Chilli jam - extra ingredient

Please note that I forgot to include the following ingredient in the Chilli jam recipe in the previous post:

400g tinned/cartoned tomatoes, chopped.

You can tell I'm an amateur at this cooking lark . . .

See also the new note in the previous post about using fresh instead of tinned tomatoes.

Chilli jam

The final draft of the novel is not going too badly. Even though a lot of it appears not at all good to me at the moment I know now (thanks to Agatha Christie and my own experience) that it may not seem so bad when I come back to it later. In any case, it doesn’t matter. There’s a limit to what I can do with this piece of work. I’ll finish it and move to something else which will I hope be better due to the experience I’ve gained. (Well, that’s today’s wisdom anyway.)

I’ve taken the day off from the novel today in order to prepare for visitors tomorrow. However, as soon as I take the pressure off one creative project, others arrive to fill the void. I have an idea for both a blog post and some sewing (alterations to a top I no longer wear). Much more fun than making beds, washing-up and food shopping. I’m also inspired by some comments on my blogs (it’s amazing what encouragement will do) and by the mouth-watering What’s cooking? blog.

I like eating and I believe firmly in the importance of good food (by which I mean food that’s delicious and healthy) but I’m not a keen cook. I’d rather be outside in my spare time or doing anything connected with clothes (washing, ironing, mending, altering, buying, making). So I always adapt recipes to make them simpler and to use ingredients I already have in the cupboard.

Here is my recipe for chilli jam – as it stands at the moment. I’ve been making a lot recently because with the hot weather we’ve been having a lot of barbecues (and it really perks up vegetarian burgers) and because I have chillies to use up. Last year I had a glut of them in my new greenhouse and the year before some friends gave me lots from their greenhouse (thank you Cathy and Alan). I store them in the freezer and chop them from almost frozen – it’s much much easier than drying them. (Another friend gave me that tip. Thank you Jo.)

I found the original on the BBC Good Food website but have doubled the chillies, left out a couple of inessentials and nearly halved the sugar. I think it could use more chillies still, but it’s difficult to lay down the law as their strength varies. (Mine are a mixture of black, red, orange, yellow and green.) I may even reduce the sugar further in future. I sterilise the jars and lids (and jam funnel and ladle/spoon) by putting them through the dishwasher (even if they’ve come out of the cupboard clean) and then drying and warming them in a low oven.

I’m sure you could use fresh tomatoes instead of tinned ones. I haven’t tried it myself with this recipe but in my experience with other recipes you need more fresh than tinned tomatoes as they are less concentrated. You then need to boil them down to reduce the liquid.

 

Chilli jam

50g chillies

8 red peppers (or a mixture of red and orange)

250ml red (or white) wine vinegar

400g golden (unrefined) caster sugar

400g tinned/cartoned tomatoes

Roughly chop tomatoes if necessary. Chop peppers and chillies (with seeds) very small by hand or whizz them in a food processor. Put in a large saucepan with the sugar and the vinegar and the tomatoes. Bring the mixture to the boil, skim off any scum, then leave it to simmer with lid off for about 50 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Turn up the heat and boil for 10 minutes stirring frequently. Cool slightly and transfer to jars. (It doesn’t make much – 3 or 4 small/340g jars.)

Keep opened jars in the fridge

(The ingredient and instructions in bold type have been added since the recipe was first published here. Sorry!)

Should you die first

I’ve mentioned before my poetic aunt, Annabelle Despard, but I’m going to mention her again because one of her poems has been chosen by the Southbank Centre in London as one of the 50 best love poems of the last 50 years. It’s called ‘Should you die first’ and is to be found in her poetry collection Dressed in Water (Dionysia Press 2011) and in the anthology Being Human (Bloodaxe 2011).

The poems will be read out at the Southbank Centre on 20 July. You can read Annabelle’s poem on the Dionysia website, and about the selection in the Guardian of 2 July.

The list includes poems from 30 different countries. Annabelle, like my mother, is half Norwegian. She lives in Norway and writes her poems in both English and Norwegian.

I’m very proud of her.

My struggle

As you may have gathered from my other blog, Frog and I have been on holiday. Frog devours books while we’re away – at least one a day – but I like to give my brain a rest. I spend a lot of time staring into space, relishing the peace.

One book I did read however is the above (A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard). It’s the first in a series of six (called 'My Struggle'), which has caused a sensation all over the world. Even before I’d heard about the series, I’d picked up number 3 in the bookshop almost by accident (being part-Norwegian myself, I'm interested in anything Norwegian which this is) and been riveted by the opening paragraph.

The book is an extraordinary mixture of novel, memoir and philosophical treatise, at times boring and at times brilliant. I kept finding myself folding down corners of pages, because the author had said something so perfect that I didn’t want to forget it. (Frog would be horrified. He treats books with the greatest respect. I, on the other hand, like books to look lived in. Funnily enough, we’re the other way round when it comes to houses and clothes.)

One paragraph in particular expressed exactly what I feel all the time but have never had the courage to articulate to anyone but Frog. Here it is.

I have always had a great need for solitude. I require huge swathes of loneliness, and when I do not have it, which has been the case for the last five years, my frustration can sometimes become almost panicked, or aggressive. And when what has kept me going for the whole of my adult life, the ambition to write something exceptional one day, is threatened in this way my one thought, which gnaws at me like a rat, is that I have to escape. Time is slipping away from me, running through my fingers like sand while I . . .  do what? Clean floors, wash clothes, make dinner, wash up, go shopping . . .

Next week, when we have sorted ourselves out after the holiday, I intend to get back to The Novel. Wish me luck.