Cherry Plum Cordial

First Cherry Plum recipe! This one is for Willow, as the fastest way to a 5 year old girl's heart is (apparently) a pink drink.

I weighed out 2 kilos of cherry plums, added 600ml of water and simmered gently til they were falling apart. The smell of the hot fruit at this stage was divine, delicate, sweet and fragrant. I helped them on their way by bashing up the fruit with a wooden spoon and a potato masher. I then strained the cooked plums in a jelly bag for several hours.

The resulting juice was measured and for every litre, 700g of sugar added (though this is variable to personal taste) I warmed the juice til the sugar dissolved and then used a scalded funnel to pour the cordial into warmed bottles.

Willow is currently very enthusiastically licking a variety of cordial covered cooking utensils, I think it's safe to say Cherry Plum Cordial is a hit! The taste is sharper than I anticipated, making it adult friendly too, add sparkling water and crushed ice for a sophisticated summer soft drink. Now all I need is some summer to go with it (sigh)

Busker's Cupcakes

Today was Busker's Day at Willow's school. Parents are invited to come into to school and the children put on a variety of impromptu performances around the school grounds, after which they come around with a hat and relieve the parents of all their spare change, with money raised being donated to charity.

As Willow's in reception her class went in for a closely directed, reasonably formal whole class performance, heavy on the 'ahhh' factor. The older children devise their own performances, which results in a rather eclectic mix of acts including a handful of boys leaping around on a crash mat playing air guitar to the Clash and a surreal installation involving 3 boys lieing on the floor while a 4th reclined on top of his friends reading a magazine. I donated quite heavily to that one for sheer inventiveness.

In lieu of a hot dinner, families picnic together on the school field and it was while I was preparing our picnic that I realised I didn't have any little treats to go with the school approved wholemeal bread and hummus. I only had storecupboard basics to hand so decided to make strawberry cupcakes. I knocked up a basic 2 egg/4oz sponge mixture, put a spoonful of mixture at the bottom of a cupcake case followed by a teaspoon of my homemade strawberry jam and topped with more sponge mixture. I made strawberry icing by mixing icing sugar with another tablespoon of jam and enough water to make it a spoonable consistency.

I can't say it's the most sophisticated recipe I've ever devised but it's summery, quick, simple and very child friendly. Ideal for today in fact. I can recommend this cupcake recipe for something rather more refined, they certainly went down well at Proms in the Park 2008.

Really proud of my little gardeners

Please excuse the self indulgent Mummy post but here goes. Xanthe brought home 3 packs of seeds from nursery yesterday, they're part of the Morrisons's Let's Grow 'Big Bean Challenge' (whatever that is when it's at home). Being the big sister, Willow had to get in on the act too and both girls were really excited at the prospect of their own French Beans.

I got compost and little pots out of the garage and left them to it. Half an hour later, without any help from me, they'd filled the pots with compost, planted the seeds, watered them and written 'bens' (sic) on the plant marker in the pack.

They're now lined up with the borlotti beans from yesterday and the girls are anxiously waiting to fill in their bean growth chart.

Muntjac!

Last year we made loads of fruit liqueurs in the Autumn. Willow quite rightly pointed out that we'd neglected to make any nice drinks for the underage half of the household, I promised her that this year we'd put that right, so today, Willow, Xanthe and I made elderflower cordial (don't tell Willow it also tastes nice with gin!)

The conditions were perfect, hot, dry and still. For a common plant, elder is surprisingly sparse around our house, I'm only aware of 3 in the vicinity, one in our front hedge and 2 down the bridleway opposite. We stripped the one in the garden (12 heads) and set off down the bridleway. Elder no 2 only had 6 or 7 heads in full flower so we made our way down to the 3rd one.

As I looked up ahead I saw a small muntjac deer cross the footpath. Muntjacs aren't as impressive as the larger red deer, they're about the size of a large dog, don't have antlers and some churlish people complain they're ugly. However, I can't shake my urban upbringing and am always wildly impressed by seeing any type of deer so I grasped the opportunity to make some idyllic childhood memories for my children.

I hissed at the kids "There's a deer!! A DEER!!!!", dropped my bag of flowers, picked up Xanthe, grabbed Willow's elbow and started trotting down the path. "Where Mum? Where?" Bellowed Willow at top volume "SHHHH!!!!! There he is, there, going across the field!"
"I can't see, can't SEEEEEE" So, ignoring squeals about nettles, I pushed Willow through the long grass at the side of the path so we could get through to the edge of the field and get a clear view of the little deer.

Just at the moment Willow burst into tears at being nettled the muntjac plunged through the hedgerow into the cemetery next to the field so neither child got to see him. With great restraint I didn't swear and used the opportunity to teach Willow to identify dock leaves. Let's hope Willow fondly recalls the idyllic sunny spring day of 2009 when Mum pushed her into a bed of nettles. Sigh.