I love the apple chutney that I made the first year we moved to Oregon. We picked a shitload of apples and pears, and shared with our friends, and still had lots of them left. My MIL sent me a canning recipe book from the 70s, and that has been my go to for using my checkered mason jars ever since.
I have made basically 2 recipes, spiced pear jam and apple chutney. The only thing is, we don’t eat a lot of toast so we don’t use the jam very much. And that is a damn shame because the jam is totes delish. I would like to add some jam to a cheesecake swirl or something, but I don’t need an excuse to eat a cheesecake right now, or ever, frankly. So I have donated some of my prized jams to the local Women’s Shelter, but some of it is still languishing in the pantry, 4 years later.
On the other hand, all of the apple chutney has been gone for a while and I finally picked more apples, and after they sat on the bench for 2 weeks, I finally got serious on their appley hides and whizz-banged them into some more delicious chutney. But after running around after the boys and forcing them to eat the dinner they had been whining about beforehand, I am less stringent with my recipe-following and a bit more seat-of-my-pants with my water-bathing. I did manage to catch the pots before all and sundry exploded in a delicious mess of eye-gouging glass shards and tin lids, so this time tomorrow I will be dousing whatever my meat choice is for dinner with copious amounts of apple-laden vinegar. Mmmmmm, vinegar.