travels and tomato chutney

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Maybe wait until I get home and we can book it together.

His words trailed behind him as he ran out the door. I stopped, frowned, and wondered why he wouldn’t have wanted me to go ahead and book the flights.  Hmm, I’m a big girl. Surely I could do this?

It didn’t take long for me to stop frowning.

Maybe it was because the last flights I had booked for his parents, had needed a little tweaking of their itinerary. It had been the parents-in-law once every 5 years break and they had asked me to sort out a weeks holiday for them. Sure. No problem, I’d love to. Three days in and I had it well and truly covered. Itinerary researched, places of interest taken down, accommodation scrutinized and everything just needing to be booked. I started with the flights, the logical first choice. With mother- in- law’s trusty credit card in hand, I paid. Confirmation email confirmed everything, along with the fact that I had just made a huge mistake. I had just flown them into the wrong city.

Excellent. Well there’s a good start. I swore, bit my nails, ranted to a friend, and then made a crazed phone call to Mr Chocolate to tell him what I had done. He laughed and said he couldn’t talk at the moment (he was at work).

So, I had two choices. One to try to change all the flights, or two change their holiday… rather a lot. I chose two, (and just between you and me, I think I actually gave them a better itinerary the second time around.) When we met up and I gave them their holiday details. I did toy with the idea of telling them some extraordinary story of how it was all booked out due to an alien space craft having just crashed into the area and all the local spok watchers were coming in from near and far to try and take a look at the big shiny aircraft. I wasn’t sure they would buy that one, so I… a little nervously, told them the truth. I had oops-ed the flight details, BUT had a lovely replacement holiday all booked for them now. They laughed, and said it didn’t matter. I laughed too, while carefully scrutinising their faces to see if it really DID matter… (I don’t think it really did.)

So it could have been for that reason that Mr Chocolate had asked for me to wait for him to book the flights…. OR it could have been referring to the time I booked some accommodation into the wrong town for ourselves and my mum coming back from a holiday. An innocent mistake that I had luckily picked up on just a few hours before we were supposed to arrive. How we all laughed and made funny jokes at my little mistake, (right after I had sworn, bit my nails and ranted to anyone that would stand still.) Thanks to a well organised international booking system, this little problem too was again righted.

As neither (minor) incidents had happened a long time ago, Mr Chocolate was clearly thinking of one or both of them and obviously thought the booking process should be monitored by someone other than myself.

Fair call I say. So I waited.

Flicking through my CWA Preserves book I did think vaguely about waiting until I had all the ingredients to one of these recipes. However, seeing as though there wasn’t a lot riding on the chutney. No flights needed to be caught, no accommodation needed to be checked in to and the chutney wouldn’t be going anywhere except the table. I didn’t. I had a bag of tomatoes waiting to be used and I had chutney on my mind. I just couldn’t decide what flavours to play with. Which recipe would I like? Actually none of them were grabbing me. They all sounded good, but they weren’t quite the flavours I had in mind. They weren’t my flavours. So with a close of the book, a little pause and a think, I got cracking.

Tomato Chutney

5 cloves garlic

2 onions quartered

2 apples quartered

1 inch peeled fresh ginger

all in the blender and give a quick wizz. Then all into a pot, also adding

3 tps cumin

3 tps coriander

and cook off for a few minutes. Back to the blender add

1 kilo of firm ripe tomatoes

pop that in the pot as well, and bring to a simmer, then add

2 1/2 cups brown sugar (loose, not firmly packed)

2 cups white vinegar

zest of 1 lime*

Cook at a simmer for about 35 minutes or until darker in colour and thicker. Then bottle.

* Don’t forget that lime. It was definitely the clincher.

36 thoughts on “travels and tomato chutney”

  1. Your flight and accommodation booking errors made me laugh 🙂 I can see how it would happen though! I always obsessively check details before hitting ‘confirm’ because it would be so easy to click on the wrong date / place / flight in the lead up to that final screen.

    That chutney should also be enough to make up for any past booking dramas – it looks great!

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  3. I’ve made the odd mistake when booking travel. I now triple check everything and use my very good travel agent for anything too complicated. That chutney looks mighty fine.

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  8. Hats off to you for delving into internet holiday bookings in the first place! I am terrified of this domain and leave it to hubby. May your plans be correct and your travels be happy, whenever they are scheduled to take place. Love a good chutney 😉

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  11. I love your writing – I’m betting you do short stories on the side. And your chutney looks just different enough to be added to my short list of summer preserves – Thanks.

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  12. Too funny girl – you made me laugh. Now I’m all big ears about where you guys are heading off too – another holiday in the wind 🙂 I love how our ooops moments do turn out to be funny stories (ones you can’t live down sometimes) huh. Chutney looks great, I need to stock up on some chutneys, love em 🙂

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  13. Oh no! Good save anyway. I have a friend who doesn’t do her travel arrangements as she tends to mix them up frequently. I have to admit, booking flights makes me nervous, especially filling out the name and info – if you enter it incorrectly, that’s it!

    Love the chutney, I’ve never had a tomato version before.

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  15. Oh Brydie! Your travel snafu confessions sound so familiar!
    I have my son’s do all the booking of flights for me- I don’t trust myself- I don’t care how many times I check, I still goof up something!
    Looking at your recipe made me smile- you love the same spices and flavors that I do- ginger and coriander and cumin- I was surprised to see that you hadn’t snuck a little cardamom into the chutney, as well!

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  16. What a tale! I’m sure it will be the stuff of family legends in years to come :-). Your chutney sounds delicious. I hope you have a great day. Blessings…Mary

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  18. I have to agree with Christine, I’m not game to try and sort it out myself on the internet either. I’m always worried something won’t connect, or we’d arrive somewhere and have nowhere to sleep. Chutney is a much better idea. 🙂

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