February
February saw Get Growing really start to grow, literally. We embarked on the mission to restore part of an old glasshouse so that we could create a seedling nursery. It needed a fair bit of work, clearing, cleaning and moving extra stuff around the glasshouse. Not an easy task. One of the casualties was a bed of Cape Gooseberries. There is a wilting pile of gooseberries, that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away (following of the permaculture principles of no waste) and so decided to make something out of it.
I researched recipes on the net, asked my mum if she had any from her collection of South African books. Nothing. No recipes for unripe cape gooseberries. What to do? Well, another useful permaculture principles is that the yield is only limited by the imagination of the designer, so I set about… making it up. This time round at Sara’s house. So one cold February afternoon, looking out over London Fields we starting making Cape Gooseberry Chutney.
Now, I have to admit, I’m not a great fan of chutney. I associate it with the jars of unidentifiable brown stuff I would find lurking in the back of my great aunts cupboards. But this stuff was so different, the unripe gooseberries are a vibrant!
And if I ate meat, I would be delighted to find this on the kitchen table on Boxing day for those turkey and ham sandwiches. I’ve enjoyed with with curries, sandwiches and it has been such a pleasure to it, and a great encouragement to experiment and make and eat chutney.