Chilli Jam

I'm quite addicted to this stuff at the moment. It is great on meat or spinach pie or even on toast. Costs a fortune to buy at markets and supermarkets don't usually stock it so I thought i'd work out how to make it myself.

Makes 2 jars

Ingredients

1 red capsicum

6 sweet peppers

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

Splash balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup white vinagar

3/4 packet jam setter

3/4 cup water

1/4 cup sweet chilli or hot chilli

Method

1. De-seed and chop capsicum and peppers finely. Put in everything except jam setter into a saucepan. Cook on low for 30 mins.

2. Slowly add jam setter. Bring to the boil stirring then remove from heat.

3. Let stand for 10 mins then bottle and put in fridge to set.

Chicken Pâté

After seeing the movie Julie and Julia I got Julia Child's recipe book 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking'. It's a wonderful book. I completely recommend it. Anyway after discovering how easy and cheap it is to get chicken livers (my 'exotic' ingredient for the week) I thought i'give Pâté a go. Unfortunately though some of the ingredients weren't all that easily available so i had to substitute here and there. Thus i figure i might well well put up this recipe which is almost the same but using much more easy to find ingredients and with measurements made metric.

Ingredients

300g chicken livers

a pinch of chopped fresh thyme

1/2 cup butter

3 tbs butter

1/2 cup cream cheese

1/2 onion finely chopped

pinch salt

pinch white pepper

1/2 cup white wine

Method:

1. Clean the livers. This involves washing them under a tap and cutting out and throwing away and gross bits that are green/black or yellow. Pat dry with paper towel.2. Put 3 tbs butter into a skillet. Then slowly saute onions on low heat until they are soft for about 10mins. Don't let them brown. Add livers. Constantly turn them and cook for about 1min.3. Add white wine, salt, pepper, thyme. Cook for about a minute.4. Remove from heat and puree in a food processor or similar. Then slowly add the remaining butter and cream cheese. Mix until smooth. Chill.Serve on crusty bread with cheese.