Think of this as Christmas Salsa. It's hotter and more piquant than the jammy American-derived cranberry sauces.

Serves 6

225g/8oz cranberries (thawed if frozen)
50g/1.75oz sugar
0.25 tsp ground cinnamon
the flesh of 2-3 tangerines (or 2 oranges) roughly chopped
3 spring onions, finely chopped
a couple of dashes of Tabasco (or to taste)

1. Put the cranberries, sugar and cinnamon in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and cook over a moderate heat until berries swell and split. Allow to cool.

2. When cool, transfer to a bowl and stir in the fruit, spring onions and Tabasco to taste.

Lifted directly from the Woman's Hour page

This is very quick to make and wonderful with bread and goats' cheese or English cheddar.

Makes about 350g/12 oz

1 small red onion, chopped
1 cm /1/2 inch piece of fresh ginger, grated
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon olive oil
Pinch of red chilli flakes
225g/8 oz blackberries
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
½ teaspoon salt

Fry the onion, ginger and garlic in the olive oil in a covered pan for 10 minutes, until soft but not browned.

Stir in the chilli flakes, blackberries, sugar, vinegar and salt. Cook gently for 15-20 minutes, until the juice produced by the blackberries has reduced and the mixture is quite thick.

Cool. Keep in the fridge.

3 large cucumbers
4 large onions
4 level tbsp coarse salt
1 pint distilled vinegar
6 0z granulated sugar
1 level tsp celery seeds
1 level tsp mustsrd seeds

Wash, dry & thinly slice cucumbers
Peel & slice onions
Mix together in bowl and sprinkle salt over.
Leave for 2 hours, rinse & drain

Bring vinegar,. sugar, and spices to boil and simmer for 3 minutes.

Pack cucumber & onion loosely in warm jars.
Cover with vinegar and seal immediately.

3 pints malt vinegar
1 lb sugar
quarter oz bruised ginger
12 white peppercorns
half oz chillies
4 lbs red tomatoes
3 lbs apples
1 lb marrow
1 lb shallots
3 lemons
1 lb sultanas
3 oz salt

Put vinegar and sugar into a preserving pan. Tie the spices in muslin and add to pan. Boil for 50 minutes.

Meanwhile cut tomatoes, applies, marrow and shallots into small pieces (or put through a mincing machine). Squeeze juice from lemons. Add all ingredients to the vinegar and simmer until cooked and softened, approx 4 hours. It may be necessary to add more vinegar during the cooking or cook for a little longer if too runny.

Remove the muslin bag, pour into clean, warmed jars and seal. Makes 10 - 12 lbs.

For the last batch of this I used home-grown tomatoes that were a very red and fleshy varieties and the flavour was distinctly tomatoey. I also used habanero chillies and the chutney had a slight bite to it. I could have used the whole packet (1 oz) I think for something with even more bite but still not too hot.

6 pounds (2.7kg) plums
3 pints (1.7 litres) vinegar (malt works fine)
2 pounds (1 kg) brown sugar
2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp ground mace
6 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne
2 tsp ground ginger
2 oz (50gms) garlic

Halve and stone the plums.
Put all the ingredients into a large pot and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer for about two and a half to three hours until reduced to a pulp. You can leave it to itself for a while...just give a stir every so often, but then stir more frequently towards the end so that the mix doesn't start to stick and burn on the bottom.
Once reduced to a pulpy sauce, bottle and seal.

Equipment:

Preserving pan - a large, open pan about 12 inches in diameter and six inches deep. Mine's made of aluminium, but if you're worried about any link with Alzheimers you might want to pay extra for stainless steel. Marmalade is pretty acidic.

A "jam funnel" is very useful when filling the jars, but if you are careful you can do without.

Ladle, large saucepans, scales, cooker, 10 1 lb jam jars (or 12 oz peanut butter jars) with lids.

Ingredients:

3lb citrus fruit, of which at least half is Seville oranges or lemons. Remainder can be grapefruit, tangerines, limes, sweet oranges.

3 pts of water.

6 lb granulated sugar. I use cane sugar (Tate & Lyle) rather than beet. Don't bother with "preserving sugar", you'll get all the pectin you need from the fruit.

Method:

1/ Wash and scrub fruit in plain water. Place in large pan(s) (not the preserving pan) with the 3 pts of water and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for two hours, by which time the smallest fruit should be soft. Remove from heat.

2/ Meanwhile, wash the jars, drain them, and put them in a low oven to dry out and sterilise. [Marmalade should be put into hot, dry jars.]

3/ Remove the smallest fruit to a plate and cut into chunks or strips. Separate the pips and return them to one of the saucepans. Put the chopped up skin in the preserving pan. Repeat for the rest of the fruit, in size order. [This is the tedious bit. I put my plate on a tray and carry it to a table so I can sit down to do it. You really do want to cut the fruit up quite small, as it seems to swell a bit later. A fork is quite useful to hold it down while you chop it.]

4/ When all the fruit has been cut up, put the pips and water into one saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for five minutes, to extract the pectin. [You'll have noticed that the pips are very sticky when they come out of the fruit.] Pour the water into the preserving pan through a seive to catch the pips. [Which are now entirely non-sticky.]

5/ Bring the fruit to the boil and simmer for ten minutes, or longer if very watery. Add the sugar, 1 lb at a time, and stir it in. (A good strong wooden spoon is what you need.) [The way the colours intensify when you add the sugar is quite fascinating.]

6/ Bring to a rolling boil, and cook until a test piece sets. To do a test, put a little marmalade on a chilled plate. Let it cool, and then lightly drag your finger over the surface. If you drag a skin, the marmalade's probably done. Eat the sample. If it's not ready, put the plate back in the freezer and continue boiling for another ten minutes. [This bit does get easier with experience.]

7/ Allow the marmalade to cool for fifteen minutes or so. [If you put it in jars too hot, the fruit will float to the surface. Perfectly edible, but no prize winner.]

8/ Remove the jars from the oven. Pour marmalade into jars, and screw down the lids while still hot. [This gives a sterile, low oxygen environment which is what preserves it. My mother always lets it cool with the lids off, then puts a disc of wax paper on top "to trap the mould". I reckon the paper introduces the mould spores. I've never found any hint of mould when first opening one of my jars.] Scrape out the preserving pan into a bowl and consume over the next few days. Leave the jars for as long as you like to mature.

Place the tomatoes in the oven in a dish. Sprinkle salt and olive oil over them with herbs of your choice. Roast to whatever colour you want them.

Sterilise a jar, put the toms in it and cover with olive oil and if you want a sprig of the herb of your choice.

Ingredients (1)
Some cloves of garlic peeled and sliced
A couple of onions peeled and chopped
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Ingredients (2)
1 lemon chopped peel and all
3 Tangerines chopped
Peel from one tangerine
4 oranges chopped including peel
1 onion skinned and chopped
some preserved ginger chopped (I used the syrupy stuff)

Ingredients (3)
a sprinkling of whatever herbs are to hand( I used thyme but anything would work)
nutmeg
chinese 5 spice
pickling spices water
malt vinegar
sugar

Method
Add ingredients (1) to a heavy bottomed heated pan and allow to brown .

Add ingredients (2) and simmer for 5 minutes or so stirring occaisionally.

Add ingredients (3) bring to boil and then simmer (stirring now and then when u can be bothered to get away from the puter) until a jam-like consistency.

Bottle.

(1)The juice and zest of a lime, a lemon and a grapefruit
Strawberries hulled and chopped
2 onions finely chopped
1 clove garlic finely chopped
2 oz honey
4 oz sugar
cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg to taste
enough water to cover main ingredients
(2)pickling and plain vinegar

Utensils Heavy bottomed pan, sterilized Jars

Place all ingredients (1) in a heavy bottomed pan and allow to boil until almost jam like.
Add (2) and simmer until setting.
Bottle

Serve with,whatever you like.

3lbs beetroot
1lb cooking apples
1lb onions
1lb sugar
half tsp ginger
2 tsp salt
1 pint vinegar
juice of one lemon

First cook and dice the beetroot - keep it to one side. Peel core & dice the apples, slice the onions and boil with the other ingredients for 20 mins. Now add the beetroot and boil for a further 15 mins, or until thickened. When cooled, put into warm dry jars.

Since there is an over-whelming public demand, here goes:

Day 1: put washed red-currants in a saucepan with a small quantity of water - just enough to prevent sticking - and cook gently until soft. Strain through a jelly-bag. If you don't have one, a fine sieve or coarse pillow-case will do. Leave overnight to get the maximum juice. The jam won't be clear anyway, so you can squeeze the bag a little to get the last drops out. Discard the pulp.

Day2: Measure the juice and pour into a preserving pan. For each pint of juice, add one pound of washed gooseberries, and cook gently until soft. Then add 2 lb of warmed sugar for each pint of juice. Boil until setting point is used - I have a sugar thermometer, but you can test it by putting alitle jam on a cold saucer and checking that it skins over. Pour into warm, sterilised jars and cover. It should be a nice deep pink, not too sweet, and less seedy than plain gooseberry.

When making apple jam in large quantities it is not necessary to throw away peel and cores. They may be made into jelly; windfalls also may be used for the same purpose.

Put the peel, cores and windfalls into a preserving pan and add a little water and boil till the applies are soft enough to crush. If they are rather large they should be cut in half; badly bruised parts also should be cut off. Press the apples to a pulp with a wooden spoon, then strain all through a jelly bag, collect the juice and measure it. Allow 1lb of sugar to each pint of juice. Put the juice and sugar into a pan, and boil till the syrup jellies quickly when tested on a cold plate.

Lemon juice, ginger essence or cloves may be added for flavouring if desired. Pour into warm dry jars and cover at once.

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