Tasty Tomato Chutney

I wanted to make full use of all the beautiful tomatoes we have grown in the garden this year so I have developed this Tasty Tomato Chutney. It’s been our best year so far with our tomatoes and I am pleased as punch with how it has turned out.

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We set about with our raised beds this spring at the end of our garden. It’s been a learning experience which is still playing out due to it not being the end of the season yet for root vegetables. I’ll let you know how we get on soon. However, our tomatoes are coming on fantastically and growing up and around our patio pallet garden which is brilliant.

The tomatoes which we have used are a combination of tiger tomatoes which are striped hence the name I guess and standard red tomatoes which my youngest and I grew from the seeds of a fresh tomato which was bought from the supermarket at the start of the year. We were preparing our lunch one day and he asked if we could plant the seeds and we did. I honestly didn’t think much would come of it but low and behold it did and the plants are strong and producing lots of fruit.

I hope you enjoy this recipe and see how easy it is to make fresh chutney with a few ingredients.

Use a really sharp knife to cut a cross in the skin before pouring the boiling water over. This way after 5 minutes you can push the tomatoes out of their skin which isn’t needed in the recipe.

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The chutney is ideal as a little accompaniment to most other supper or lunch dishes and can even be added to vegetarian or meat stews for added richness.

Tasty Tomato Chutney

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

45 mins

Cooling time

10 mins

Total Time

55 mins

A super easy Tomato Chutney packed with flavour

Course: Side Dish

Servings: 8

Author: mainy - myrealfairy

Ingredients

500 g Tomato
250 g Onions
100 g Brown sugar
1 clove Garlic
75 ml Red or White wine vinegar
Half tspn Paprika Optional

Instructions

Cut a cross in the skins of the tomatoes and pour over boiling water in a bowl.
Leave to stand for 5 mins and then carefully remove the skins which should peel off easily now.
Chop the onions roughly and then mince the garlic. Place in a large heavy bottomed saucepan.
Place all the other ingredients on top and bring gently to the boil stirring all the time.
Simmer gently, stirring frequently for approx 45mins
You are looking and feeling for a soft jam like consistency.
After about 30 mins, spoon out a small amount, set aside to cool. Then try it for personal taste.
When you are happy, continue for the full amount of time.
Leave to cool slightly then place in your sterilised jars and leave to fully cool.

Recipe Notes

Enjoy with cold meats or cheese. Also try out my Soda Bread recipe as these goes amazing well together.

Have Fun! Mainy

Let me know how you get on if you make yours. Also rate the recipe please.

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Honeycomb Birds Giveaway

The giveaway I am pleased to be sharing with you today actually shows how you can have wonderfully elegant decorations in the house which can represent the outside wildlife so well. This is a favourite giveaway of mine as they are so beautiful.

They can be used as wedding party decorations, imagine a flock of these in one corner on a lovely summers day…beautiful!

Great at a christening, childrens party or any occasion that you want your decorations to stand out from the crowd. Much nicer to have your party talked about for all the right reasons.

These 3 birds can be used inside or outside and if handled carefully can be used again and again. The pack contains 3 x 6″ paper honeycomb birds.

They are beautiful and add a touch of something a bit different. You can enter using the rafflecopter widget below. Good luck and thanks for visiting today.

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Summer Linky #mainylovessummer

What a summer we have been having so far! Here on the south coast it has been so hot and we have been making the most of living so close to the beach. Every day seems to be a swim day after school and work.

I love the summer and regular readers will know that every now and then I love to hold a linky party to have a get together and share lots of our posts.

Something that always stays the same is that there is no badge to display!

It’s all about sharing, reading and enjoying each others writing. Feel free to add up to 3 of any type of blogging post old or new.

Reviews, giveaways, recipes, parenting, lifestyle, poetry all manner of posts are welcome here.

Just let common sense prevail and refrain from anything outrageously offensive:)

My favourite forum is twitter so please also tweet as many posts as possible using the hash tag #mainylovessummer @myrealfairy and I will tweet away for days and days both your posts and all those you tweet from the link up.

I will also pin all posts to the #mainylovessummer pinterest board. Have a look and follow along too.

Let’s make this a real summer sizzler for 2018 and get everyone reading and talking about your posts.

Suggested guidance for participating:

I’d love it if you commented on the host post and at least one more for every post you link up.
Tweet using the hashtag #mainylovessummer @myrealfairy when you link up and you’re away!
Tweet, pin, talk about it on instagram and share using all the wonderful ways you wish and let the blogger know when you comment how you have shared their post.
Use the hashtag #mainylovessummer when you comment please.
Enjoy and read something you wouldn’t normally click on.
Have fun!

Love Mainy

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Summer Notelets Giveaway

It’s summer and I’m in the mood for more and more giveaways!

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Social Soiree Pack of 12 Blank Notelets & Envelopes for Invitations & Thank You Cards

As they say, you’ve got to be in it to win it! Throughout the summer I will be putting on as many giveaways as I can. Laced in between my family, recipe and guest posts I hope that you have everything you need here to spend a little time and see what’s on offer.

I love my blog and being able to talk about so many different subjects in my own space is massively rewarding. I hope you have fun here and are enjoying the summer too. Drop me a line in the comments section and let me know what you are up to.

Have fun!

Mainy

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Open to U.K. based entrants only. Full t&c’s on my contacts page.

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Family festival in Hamworthy Park

The hot weather is continuing here and it’s taken me a bit by surprise, I really feel like we are having a summer, it’s brilliant! Just about every day we are all heading down to the beach for a swim which I love and the boys love even more. They are straight in and swimming before I can even get the towels out.

One of the beaches I used to go to when I was little was Hamworthy beach as I grew up around there and could walk to it quite easily with my family. Last weekend I was pleased to be invited by the bournemouth bloggers to a family festival held in hamworthy park and organised by Sorted in Dorset. This is an initiative set up by the people behind Party in the Park, a family-focused community festival which started in 2001 and over a 15 year period became the most popular event in Poole, Dorset.

Hamworthy Park has limited parking next to it and the park and beach was full so it took a bit of time to find somewhere but we managed in the end. As it was so hot, everyone was out and about so it was to be expected. I dropped my OH and the boys off so that they could stretch their legs and play a bit of footie. Really, if I’m honest I’d rather park up without the ‘help’ of my nearest and dearest!

We arrived as the party was getting into full swing by the sounds of the music. There was a mixed bunch of musical talents through the day from Maddie Thorp to Luke Truth. Live music always makes you have a spring in your step. I would love to be far more musical than I am, it’s something I admire in others.

There were lots of food and drink stall at the event. One of the stalls I wanted to go to was the Dorset Ginger company and I’d already tweeted them beforehand to say that I would be stopping by. I have a real thing for ginger drinks at the moment and I wanted to try a really good quality one. I had a taste of the original and then went all out for the strong one which for my palate was just right! This ginger drink can be enjoyed on its own or as a mixer. Alternatively it can be used in baking. Suits me brilliantly as I create alot of recipes for my blog and I know that I will incorporate it into a cake or cookies at some point. For the moment I’ll go with one of the recommendations of mixing it with lemonade and Pimms, delicious for the summer.

Little one was hungry which is not surprising and he had enough places to choose from. He decided on a bacon buttie to keep away the hunger and he thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the good things was that there were hay bales around the place and we found some in the shade have our refreshment break.

With a day like that we needed to keep drinking and refill dorset were raising awareness of their Reuse, Refill and Refresh campaign. Anywhere that you see the Refill logo you will be able to fill up your water bottles.

All in all we made the most of what was on offer, there were rides for the little ones and football shooting practice for the slightly bigger ones. The food and music were a great bonus and the event had a nice relaxed family feel to it.

Unfortunately due to low attendance overall at the hamworthy event, the next one which was due to be held in Bournemouth in August has been cancelled. That’s such a shame but understandable that sometimes these decisions have to be made. Here’s to hoping the event organisers reschedule and we hear more from them soon. Good luck to them.

I’m off to create some new recipes like my carrot cake and chocolate brownies! Yum.

What have you been up to so far? Are you planning trips around Dorset this summer?

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It’s the weekend….

Oh and the school holidays start!! Da da daaaaa!! It’s brilliant to have such a great start to the summer, with all this sun we have been down the beach most days after the boys have finished school. Living on the south coast of England is such a dream.

The World Cup kept us pretty occupied while it was on. Maybe football didn’t come home but I think the team did us proud! It was great to all get behind England and we loved it in our house. We had the lucky bunting up and had a great time watching so many matches. Being a mixed heritage household we had different teams to support but England were the most successful.

This weekend we are going to the Sorted in Dorset family festival in hamworthy Park which looks set to be a lot of fun. I remember going to that park when I was little as we had a beach hut there, so it’s going to be quite nostalgic too.

In the garden I’m going to have a good root around my plants. The success story there this week are my tomatoes.

With all of this lovely hot sun they are growing beautifully. Another week or so and they should start to ripen up to a rich red!

Not as lucky are my purple brussel sprouts. The delicate but deadly cabbage white butterfly managed to lay their eggs and the caterpillars 🐛 had a feeding frenzy before I could pick them all off.

That’s the thing with my version of organic gardening, I haven’t put anything other than water on the plants and deal with the bugs by picking them and putting them up the end of the garden. I still have my fingers crossed that my aim of have home grown brussel sprouts as part of my christmas dinner roast will actually happen.

All in all this weekend will be out in the fresh air as much as possible. A great start to the summer holidays.

What are your plans for the weekend or the summer break?

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More gardening stories can be seen here with my 5 steps to making a raised bed.

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5 Easy Steps to Making a Raised Bed

With 5 easy steps to making a raised bed you can see in pictures how to put together this easy construction and to get ideas for what materials you can use.

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We have become more and more involved with gardening since moving into our new house a few years ago. I find it so relaxing to be able to potter outside when I get home from work and on the weekend. There are so many jobs that need doing and I spend alot of time with my OH talking about what we can do to make our ideas come to life. Like most people we have to remember to balance what we want with the reality that our garden has to be right for the whole family. Back when we moved in our first project was the spring garden make over where some of the things we considered were how we could make the garden ‘boy friendly’ as our boys love playing football.

This year we have looked at having a raised bed at the far end of the garden to make use of a little patch that has been all but forgotten. It’s a bit shady and was just a great big mound of earth that really looked a bit soft and not good for anything.

For ages we said that we should do something with it and last year I scattered a few beetroot seeds over it just as a passing thought. Nothing came of them really as it gets trodden on when the bikes are bought out of the shed and once again its left looking a bit sorry for itself.

So this year it was time to do something about it and make it work for us. We decided on a raised bed, we are not full on DIY people but as you can see from our pallet garden, my OH can construct a thing or two and that recycled garden area has been a great success using free pallets and a little bit of brain power. It lasts really well too.

So back to the raised bed at hand. We decided on a structure we could put together easily without cutting and drilling, one of the reasons being because we don’t have the tools to hand. We are big fans of recycling so it was a step away from using what we had around to buying in the metal and using the fast track choice. This will mean that we will be making use of it for a long time or if we do change the use of it then we will ourselves recycle the materials. There are lots of different stores which sell these and we chose one that was having a closing down sale so picked it up for a bargain price.

For this 5 Easy Steps to Making a Raised Bed I’ve used pictures to show how my two happy helpers got stuck in …and how quick it was to create.

Step 1

Here’s the patch of earth I was talking about before, pretty basic eh? We gave it a rough measuring out beforehand. My son and OH then created a flat area and gave it a good weeding.

Raised Bed — My son showing off the ‘before’ area.

Step 2

Like any good construction project my chaps had a good long look at all the bits they were going to assemble! Oh and by now it started to rain!

Step 3

Structure up and slotted together perfectly, no banging on the fingers, hopping on one foot after dropping a hammer, nada!

Step 4

At this point I think I did help with the carrying up to the end of the garden, or at least shouting encouraging words, I can’t quite remember. The bed fitted in perfectly.

Step 5

Numerous trips then followed to bring the soil and compost up there to fill it up. We roughed up the base soil which it was sitting on first so that it would feed in the nutrients from the rich soil we were putting on above.

We were now ready to go! I have been reading and thinking about what I want to try growing in this area and it will be mainly root vegetables but for the first year I will have a little experiment with a few different types. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes. For now this is a brilliant raised bed completed in just one afternoon.

What projects have you been carrying out in your garden?

What do you think to the idea of a raised bed?

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How hot? A beauty of a day out in Birmingham

I can’t let this boiling hot weather pass without mentioning it. It’s wonderful, tiring and totally surprising for us here in the U.K.

But what’s brilliant is that it fits in perfectly with us talking about the weather. Isn’t it what we are known for? Set a cuppa next to this little paragraph and we have an English photo opportunity.

I’m lucky enough to be sat here in the Birmingham Botanical Gardens writing this post today.

It’s stunning and I’m sat under the shade of a tree just taking it all in. I’ve travelled up from bournemouth for work and am lucky enough that the meeting was here!

It seems really popular with school trips and families having picnics and having a mooch around. Travelling with kids can be a challenge but so rewarding. I always have a great time with my mum and boys on holiday, Alcudia was fab and we got so much out of it.

I couldn’t let this pass by without sharing the pictures with you. Hope you enjoy them:)

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5 Ways to Save Money during the School Holidays

5 Ways to Save Money during the School Holidays

Today we have a guest post from Jon over at The Money Shed As the UK’s largest community website dedicated to earning money from home there is nothing he doesn’t know about saving or making money online. The Money Shed has a forum with over 6000 UK members and 125,000 posts so if you fancy earning some extra money from your computer make sure to drop by and join in.

That time of year is fast approaching, as the weather gets nicer and the kids get more restless. That must mean the school summer holiday is nearly here. While your kids may be really looking forward to six weeks off from homework, you may have other ideas.

It’s hard enough to find things to do with your kids over the holidays, never mind how much all of that costs. With days out, trips to different places and activities your bills can soon go up. You don’t want to cut out on any of the fun but you don’t think that your budget can stretch that far.

If this sounds like you then read our guide on how to save money during the school holidays, making sure you’re not leaving out any of the fun stuff!

Tesco

If you’re a regular shopper at Tesco and have a Clubcard with them then you’re already saving money every time you shop. However, they also send coupons and vouchers to those who use them regularly and these can be really great.

These vouchers include Thorpe Park, Alton Towers, Legoland and cinema tickets. These rewards are a great way to make sure that you’re saving money and still doing fun stuff with the kids.

Free days

Keep your eye on places which are completely free to enter. There are a lot of places all over the country that don’t charge you for entering. These places include museums and castles, which your kid will love – even if they think they won’t. There are also lots of farms which offer open days during the summer meaning your children can get up close with animals and nature for a day.

Some places which normally charge admission have free days during the holidays too. Have a look for places which are involved in this scheme to secure you and your kids a great, free day out.

Travel

With all this to-ing and fro-ing all over the country, your fuel costs are definitely going to feel the burn. Instead of choosing to stay nearer to home, why not purchase a railcard? Most train lines offer these at a discounted rate, and you can save even more when travelling with kids.

The kids will love adventuring on the train and it’ll not only save you money, but it will save you having to drive everywhere.

Kids Pass

Kids pass is a great site which allows you to get money off nearly everything. They do deals on their site which means you can purchase an annual pass for far less than you usually would. These passes offer children under a certain age free or discounted entry into loads of attractions that you’d normally pay a fortune for.

The passes can also be used at certain restaurants so if you want a night off from cooking then you can choose one of these. One pass will cover an entire household, and in some cases even cover the adult pass too.

Stay in

Okay, so you’re probably thinking that being stuck at home with rowdy children sounds like a nightmare, but not if you make it fun! Have theme days where everyone has to dress up, or teach your children to bake cookies. Build forts and have sleepovers in them. The possibilities are endless.

You can have movie days where you make your own popcorn or play board games. Search charity shops for lots of board games at ridiculously good prices. This is such a good idea when you have no other options, or if the weather lets you down and you don’t want to traipse around in the rain.

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Stunning Stourhead National Trust Estate

We had a real treat recently with our trip to Stourhead which is a National Trust estate with huge gardens and house. We won a family ticket which was a thrill in itself and we wanted to go somewhere that we hadn’t previously heard of.

My OH and I had a look through the national trusts site. With our need to have somewhere; family friendly, a long walk and a good house to have a nose around, coupled with somewhere within 1 to 2 hrs drive, we settled on Stourhead in Wiltshire. It seemed to have all the elements that would suit us. It does state that no balls are to be taken for the kids and I can understand that they don’t want a football to go hurtling into all their beautiful plants and flowers.

We packed a good old family picnic in the morning and set out on our trip. It didn’t take too long to get there from our home in Dorset, just over an hour. Our prize ticket did work OK. I’m always a little worried when using a voucher or something that ‘the computer says no’ or there is a problem with that day or time being excluded. Everything was fine though.

The house is stunning and you can see from this view looking up from the gardens that it is framed really well by the care that is taken over the gardens. you can also see by the dark clouds that rain was a feature of our day too!

The literature and the information around the house charts the lives of the last family to have Stourhead, parents Henry and Alda Hoare and their only son Harry. The family were devoted to each other and to Stourhead. Behind the public rooms used for entertaining and shared with visitors were the intimate family spaces where the family could relax and be themselves.

As you move around the family home, you follow in the family’s footsteps from their arrival and through the war years. Henry and Alda were devastated when Harry was killed in World War 1. They gave Stourhead to the National Trust in 1946.

In the playrooms there were dressing up areas for the children to try on clothes from the era that the family were in residence. Our boys had some fun in there. It’s a good break if you are doing the tour in the house with children as they can let off a little steam without worrying that they will upset anyone.

There is also a picture quiz where they have to go round and find pictures of dogs in different paintings around the house. The boys love a bit of competition between themselves so it was another task to keep them occupied.

So much care and dedication was put into the gardens by the family, it was such a labour of love for them.

“The greens should be ranged together in large masses as the shades are in painting: to contrast the dark masses with light ones, and to relieve each dark mass itself with little sprinkling of lighter greens here and there.“

Dogs are welcome across Stourhead’s countryside areas all year round. They are welcome in the landscape garden from March-October after 4pm, after 3pm in November and all day, every day from December-February.

The kitchen gardens were in full bloom. The plants were massive and growing so well. I would of loved to chatted with one of the gardeners to get some tips but I didn’t manage to. In one of my posts where my OH made my pallet garden you can see what we have managed at home. I’m really chuffed with what we have managed on a small scale and for free! My dream would be to have a huge garden devoted to fruit and veg.

The visit was wonderful and I think the rain added to the day in ways that surprised me. There were times we had to stop and take shelter under some of the huge trees or hide under the arches. In those times we felt some more of the magic of Stourhead.

Have you been there or visited other walks that you would like to share? I’d love to hear about it.