Cooking is one of my hobbies. Just like I don't refer to myself as a "runner" I also don't use the word "foodie" to describe myself either. Yet, I do tend to "design" and "reverse engineer" recipes. I have enjoyed cooking before Masterchef made it trendy for amateurs to cook in the open. I've always been experimental in the kitchen and thus are able to accept failure. What I am not, is a precise cook. Every recipe I try, is tweaked. I may use a complex recipe accurately once to learn a new technique, but I am notorious for colouring outside of the lines of recipes. Cooking is a creative process for me. I love creating things and it's like playtime. Over the last few years, TV chefs have exposed us all to new ideas and concepts so my fairly experimental nature combined with these influences generally added to my fearlessness in the kitchen. Before Masterchef I was unaware of stuff like ice cream makers and fancy puréed veggies! Not having any formal training, I've just been cooking by the seat of my pants and things I've read about. I read recipes for fun, like some people read news articles, I read recipes. Once I made the switch to LCHF eating, I've also started experimenting with find some alternatives for the things one might miss. I discovered that converting foods we know to real food versions, were often quite fun and easier than one thinks. First off, we don't regularly buy pre-made low-carb or Banting products. I try to make and bake our own food from first principles. Just because inevitably, very few products have no unwanted additives. There are some, but you have to find those and often they are not easy to find. I am not a Banting Purist, but I think all of us that believes eating like this is the right way for them, should take responsibility for yourself, know your reasons for eating like this. This is not a fad diet. Despite the "fadness" associated with it. Always know why you choose to eat certain things and why you avoid others. I have a few fixed rules apart from the obvious carbs, I avoid soya, seed oils, sugar, fructose, maltitol and additives with chemical names you cannot pronounce; I aim to eat carbs only from veggies and nuts. My first principle is to keep it real, and to eat mostly fresh food. Yes it limits "fast food" options, but I have several tactics to make sure we are covered in this regard. I stock the fridge with mini-quiches, cheese, cream and we always have seed crackers and homemade low-carb bread in the house. There are some things we miss. And it's not pasta or potatoes. It's a bit of chutney on the side. I don't trust most "sugar free" products on the market, it is horrifying how often these things have additives from my forbidden list.
In my previous life, which included sugar of course, I made jam and chutney every year from the fruit from my own trees (a totally organic apricot and peach tree). Once we switched to a low-carb lifestyle, I was a bit at a loss during fruit season, the sheer volume of fruit is astounding. Between Carl and myself we could eat maybe 3-6 peaches each in the season. My trees bear about 20 to 30 kg fruit per season! Not counting the losses (dropped fruit) and my donation to the birds. Just fruit suitable to eat or cook with. We normally strip the tree at some point to prevent wastage. However, it is way too much to eat whilst fresh. My general thoughts on fruit: We eat seasonal berries mostly with the odd peach or melon (low-carb fruits predominantly) and I don't eat them daily. I eat fruit as a treat. So the obvious thing to do with a fruit tree is to find ways to save the fruit in a sensible manner that allows us to have some access to the fruit later in the year. So I decided to freeze some peaches during the fruit season to give me some time to think on it. I chopped and cleaned and weighed batches and froze the fruit in my freezer, ready for a day of experimental cooking. And this weekend I attempted to convert my traditional chutney recipe to a low-carb friendly version by replacing the sugar with a sweetener. Even though it is dense in fruit sugar, at least it has no "added" sugar. I also did not add raisins as per traditional recipes. Clearly this is not a big challenge, but I was still curious to see how the sweetener and traditional recipe would meld.
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| In the pot... |
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| Cooking slowly.... |
From 1.5kg of frozen peaches, I made my first batch of low carb friendly chutney. I am very happy with the outcome. It tastes delicious. Looks like the real thing. And was pretty easy to make. Happiness.
If you've never made chutney before, I will include my recipe in this blog. With my tips and tricks. Chutney is far easier than jam in my opinion, but I do have a few tricks.
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| The product, bottled and ready for use.
Isabel's Peach Chutney
(no added sugar)
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For my first batch I used xylitol. Just because I had some available to risk on a large experiment. I generally prefer using erythritol. The studies I read confirmed that dogs can tolerate erythritol and if they ingest the sweetener, it usually would be in very small amounts. My understanding is however that xylitol has some impact on insulin and is toxic for dogs. I'd rather be safe in this regard. I do not recommend eating an entire bottle of my No sugar added chutney. This is a condiment, and should be used in this way. As long as one keeps the carb content in mind, I don't think it will do much harm. A spoon-full on a hamburger or as a side to a curry should be just the thing. Basically life is good!
Here's my recipe, for the sake of completeness. Any recipe will work. Just know, it's been tested and was a great success. Happy cooking!
Isabel's No Added Sugar Chutney
300 g onions, chopped (chunky is fine)
2 small sweet peppers, chopped
400 ml vinegar
350 g sweetener of choice (xylitol or erythritol) or sugar if you don't follow low-carb
5 ml ground ginger
2 ml fine garlic
5 ml chili (paste if you can)
2 ml cayenne pepper
3 ml salt
10 ml garam masala or mild curry powder
2 ml turmeric
2 ml ground cumin
Note on spices: this is just my mixture, it is actually really flexible, less or more spice as per your choice.
Place all your ingredients into a large pot. It works easier if the volume of the fruit and fluids are half of your pot's volume. This makes cooking easier (and less risk of burning). I prefer using a larger pot and the smaller burner on my stove, this helps with heat control. Slow and steady is the secret to a nice colour and preventing burning. Hopefully you have empty bottles and lids in the house...Make sure they are clean, I wash mine on the hottest cycle in the dishwasher then rinse it with Vodka. Especially the lids.
Cook your chutney over a low heat for at least 1 hour, but this is where the judgement comes in. The fruit should be soft and "translucent" in appearance. You can risk a taster to make sure your flavour is in the right area. Once you are happy with the fruit, a quick tip is zap the mixture for a few seconds with a blitz-stick. This helps to thicken the chutney. Some people use thickener and you could also sprinkle a pinch of Xantam Gum powder, but be very careful. It is easy to mess this up. My preference is to thicken it with the fruit. You can also just squish it with a masher, the fruit is soft enough at this stage. Don't over do the blitzing. You still want it to look like chunky fruity chutney.
Let it cook on low heat once you've done your assisted thickening bit. Be careful of splashing and burning, now that the viscosity is higher.
Sterilize your bottles again with boiling water and rinse the lids with alcohol. Set all ready for use. I use a 500 ml plastic jug to fill my bottles. If you are lucky enough to have a jam funnel, use it. I hold the bottle by the neck (with metal tongs) whilst pouring in the chutney into the bottle - over the pot. Slightly less messy. Also once filled, put it down and wipe the top with a clean (vodka soaked) cloth. If your lid is old or you intend to keep your chutney for a while, cut a piece of cling wrap and cover the bottle before putting the lid on. This prevents the lid from rusting. Especially with chutney. For a small batch like this I used about 5 bottles of varying volume (250 to 350 ml) - you can easily use 2 or 3 bigger ones, but I intended to give some away so I use smaller bottles generally for the "boutique" batches.
The best feeling is hearing the lids "pop" as they cool down. I always get a kick out of that! If you don't feel like doing it the "hard way" you can really just put it in plastic containers in your fridge. Should last long, but I would halve the recipe or plan to give some away. It is too much to keep in the fridge as one batch (in my opinion).
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