Chestnut jam FAIL!

I have written before about smattering this blog with the odd-bit of bloghonesty, so that people who don't know me IRL can see that I have just as many project/recipe fails (or not) as they do (or not!).  My friends and family would never be surprised...I'm game to try just about anything in the kitchen and recipe failure is part and parcel of that I'm afraid.  "Learning experience" my mother would say.

So last week I tweeted about peeling 1kg of chestnuts, by hand - yes by hand, people.  It wasn't pretty. I kid you not, I had and still have dried up blood under each of my thumbnails.  I was keen to try my hand at making some chestnut jam, ala Christine Ferber style - but after the obligatory 24hr of fruit and syrup soaking that she so prefers all I got was sticky toffee goop. I therefore declare the Chestnut jam a FAIL!

Opening the paper today imagine then my delight, or horror discovering this SMH article stating that 'chestnuts reward the determined' and 'that once upon a time they were prized open by hand using thick leather gloves.'  So I'll get back in the saddle this weekend, armed with the machine, hell even leather gloves would be an improvement...and try, try again and put the whole said fail down to a great learning experience, or an excuse for more food styling fun .

Have a great day,
suzy xoxo