It's time to roast chestnuts

The squirrels are very busy at this time of year collecting chestnuts and burying them. It's relaxing to watch them carrying these large nuts in their mouths and then burying them in the ground with their human-like paws.
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​But don't miss out yourself, chestnuts roasted on an open fire are delicious!

​Read on to find out how to roast a perfect chestnut...

Firstly, it's important not to confuse sweet chestnuts with horse chestnuts (conkers), a very different thing.  Horse chestnuts are poisonous and not for human consumption!

Sweet chestnuts must be cooked before eating and make a delicious autumn treat. You can also freeze the cooked nuts for adding to recipes throughout the year.

​When gathering chestnuts, try to collect the plumper ones as thin ones won't really be worth the effort. Discard any chestnuts that have broken or damaged shells. And watch out for the prickly spines of the outer casing. Once you've collected a few good handfuls, you can consider ways of cooking them. 

It's possible to cook chestnuts in a microwave or oven, but be sure to cut or prick the outer shells first otherwise they are likely to explode in a sticky mess.  The best way to cook them is over an open fire or gas flame.

​It can be hit and miss when it comes to cooking them so have a look at the video below to see how it's done.

You can cook chestnuts on your Fabulous Firepit. You'll need a skillet like the one shown. The holes in the skillet allow the flames of the fire to burn the outer shell which give the chestnut a lovely smoked flavour.

​If you can't get a skillet with holes you can drill holes through a plain old steel frying pan, but we would not recommend doing this with teflon or other non-stick coated frying pan.