Mulberry Granola Crumble

I cooked the mulberries today, originally intending to use the recipe for Mulberry and Pear upside down cake that PattyPan from the Tarragon and Thyme blog sent to me. However, Feathers has decided to moult yet again and seems to be off laying so I was an egg short and had to think again. Crumble? I didn't have any butter in the house or even any marj suitable for cooking (damn you low fat spread with your peculiar after taste) I was also housebound due to playdate/Adam's car needing complications so couldn't get out to the shops.

Hmmm, what to do?

In the end I decided to go for crumble with a granola style topping so I could use oil in place of the fat and this is what I came up with:

Mulberry Granola Crumble.

800g Mulberry

1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

3tbsp sloe gin

sprinkle of brown sugar

100g nuts

100g oats

120ml flavourless oil

50ml maple syrup

Snip the stems off the mulberries and put into an oven proof dish. Add the sloe gin, vanilla extract and brown sugar and mix gently. Combine the rest of the ingredients and spread on top of the fruit. Bake at gm 3 for about 40 minutes. Serve with thick cream.

I loved this dessert. The flavour of the mulberries seems to be really enhanced by heating. I have to admit the topping tastes quite healthy (although I'm sure it's not!) rather than rich and indulgent but I quite liked that as the fruit is quite a rich flavour in itself so it was a nice balance.

I toyed with the idea of making jam with the rest of the fruit but in the end I decided to just freeze them for use in future crumbles/cakes etc as I kind of feel an unusual fruit like this is best enjoyed as it is.

Norfolk Tart

Right, here's the deal. You refrain from telling jokes about Thetford, Great Yarmouth and errant husbands and I won't tell you the horrific details of my "regional tarts" Google experience. No need to spread the trauma any further I think.

As it was my Mum's 60th Birthday recently we decided to throw an extravagant champagne cream tea to celebrate. We took Jenny Joseph's 'Warning' as our theme, gilt edged crockery was purchased, posh frocks were worn and the menu was fretted over.

In celebration of my 'new' culinary home, I decided to make a Norfolk Tart using this recipe I'm assured it's calorie free ; ) I've mentioned this dish to a number of people who've never heard of it so it would be lovely to hear from anyone who knows anything about it, or how traditional this recipe may be.

Pictured is the finished product (on the bottom tier of the cake stand) which was sweet, buttery and delicious. Much better than the Manchester Tart I remember from school dinners with it's 100's and 1,000's slowly bleeding their colour into the slimy, jellified custard underneath, though I suspect that's more to do with the school kitchen than the Tart itself.

Our First Allotment Harvest!

Another historic day in the kitchen - Roughly 10 weeks after taking on our allotment, I brought home our first harvest, a bunch of big, fat radishes and a straggly bouquet of Rabe Broccoli.

I guess it's no surprise that radishes feature as they're such a fast growing crop though the stonking great size was unexpected. We sampled them at home and they were eye wateringly, nose runningly hot. On the upside, my sinuses have never been so clear.

I've recently discovered that I'm actually growing Rabe Broccoli (a name I prefer to it's other, rather off putting, one of turnip broccoli) I have to admit I got the seeds free on the front of a gardening magazine and just slung them in the ground without paying too much attention. When they came up with a somewhat unconventional appearance I did some proper research and realised what I actually had.

I now find I have the first glut of the season on my hands, the plants have grown up remarkably quickly and some are even flowering which gives an urgency to our diet over the next few days. I chopped down just 4 of the biggest plants, they filled a bucket and I struggled to cram them into the fridge. To make matters worse the children have turned their nose up at the slightly peppery taste so chomping duty falls to me and Adam. I may experiment with freezing some though I'm not sure if the leaves can stand it.

I'd happily give some away if it weren't for their embarrassingly lacy appearance thanks to the flea beetle. My efforts to control them haven't been effective so far. I put up some sticky traps but the little blighters merely boinged contently around them, refusing to fling themselves at the traps in a suicidal fashion. I've tried the treacle on card method but again, they seemed quite savvy re jumping away from the death trap card rather than onto it. Fleece is next on the list to try.

On the chomping front I'm going to try this recipe with the Rabe Broccoli alongside some barbecued pork belly for that authentic down home vibe.

Beer Bomb.

I think I've mentioned previously that we've had our first harvest from the Allotment. Sadly not a crop we've grown but a large bagful of nettles I picked before the rough ground got zizzed by a helpful lawnmower. As free alcohol always piques my interest I decided to try my hand at Nettle Beer.

I used the River Cottage recipe which was really easy. I fancied a fizzy drink so I consulted the oracle of all things home brew aka my husband who once made some fizzy lager back when the Conservatives were last in power. He advised putting a couple of teaspoons of sugar in each bottle as I was bottling it.

Technically then, the mess in my larder is his fault. I opened the larder door on Saturday morning to make breakfast and a bottle top rolled out.....

Then I spied a funny sticky patch on the floor.

Then the splash marks.

Then the wreckage of a 2litre plastic bottle.

So no, husband dearest, that mysterious bang you heard at midnight wasn't someone trying to break in as you first thought and neither was it the fault of the neighbours as you later thought. It was, in fact, our nettle beer exploding and taking out the hand held mini vac in the process.

Luckily we only lost one bottle, but the others were alarmingly mis-shapen and blown and they fizzed and farted for what felt like an age as we let the excess gas out.

The first tasting was last night. It bears no resemblance to beer as I'd recognise it but it's very close to elderflower champagne. Perhaps not quite so sophisticated with it's strangely swampy sweetness but very pleasant and summery nonetheless and, most importantly, it's free!

To Make a Tart of Medlars ....

"Take Medlers that be rotten, and stamp them, and set them upon a chafin-dish with coales, and beat two yolks of Eggs, boyling till it be somewhat thick, then season it with Sugar, Cinamon and Ginger, and lay it in paste. Being baked scrape on sugar."

So that's what I did. Simple. What? More explanation you say? Do you really think it's needed?

The above is Robert May's Medlar Tart recipe from 1660. As you may remember I got hold of some Medlars earlier in the year and made Medlar 'Fudge' (which I have since re-christened Medlar Medley) at the time I also came across this recipe on the 'net. The original URL now seems to be broken but thankfully I had copied it into a word document. As I now have several jars of Medlar Medley to use up I thought I'd experiment a bit to make a Medlar tart.

I'm blogging it mostly because it's an interesting exercise to try and use a 300+ year old recipe rather than out of any expectation that anyone may actually rush out and copy it. The basis of the recipe seems to be a puree of the medlars mixed with eggs, sugar and spices. 'Laying it in a paste' apparently means to put it in a pie shell so the recipe now begins to look very similar to a modern American pumpkin pie, which I looked to for technical details like cooking times and temperatures.

My main problem is that I don't have fresh medlars but I decided to treat my Medlar Medley as the Medlar puree, already mixed with sugar and spices. The upshot was this:

A Tart of Medlars.

1 block ready made short crust pastry (I know, I know, learning to make pastry is next on my list)

1 jar Medlar Medley

3 eggs

Half a small tin of evaporated milk, or single cream. (this bit I added from the pumpkin pie recipes)

Roll out the pastry and line a greased, floured baking dish. Prick the bottom with a fork and brush with beaten egg (this can be taken from the eggs used in the main tart recipe) Bake at GM 5 for half an hour. Meanwhile mix the Medlar, eggs and evaporated milk together to make a pourable mixture. When the pie shell is lightly browned, fill with the Medlar mixture and bake at GM 4 for a further 40 minutes, or until the filling has set. Serve warm with cream or ice cream.

To be fair, the finished tart is not a thing of beauty being, as it is, filled with brown sludge. However, the flavour is there is spades, spicy caramel with a strong, fruity, Medlar tang. At the risk of sounding a complete ponce, it's a privilege to experience a taste of the 17th Century.

Turkey Fajitas

This is another one of those 'mustn't forget this one' recipe posts. I made Turkey Fajitas last night. Turkey because I can't get over the price of free range chicken breasts (the same price as a whole chicken!) and turkey breast was less than half the price. Fajitas because the children were out for tea so Adam and I could enjoy the type of food they just won't touch. I was pleased with this one, the meat was tender, juicy and spicy. Mm-mmm.



Marinade for Turkey Fajitas.
Juice and zest of 2 limes
1tsp ground cumin
Chili flakes to taste
2 large tbsp yellow bullace jam (or honey)
Chopped fresh coriander

Mix all together with strips of turkey breast (take out the white stripes of cartilage running through the meat), leave to marinade for a couple of hours or so. Tip everything into a pan over a high heat and let it bubble away til the excess liquid has boiled away leaving a sticky, spicy glaze over the turkey. Serve with the usual fajita accoutrement's.

Incidentally, I've had some feedback on the progress of the allotments. Apparently the plots are ploughed, weeded and marked out. Once the Allotment sub committee has drawn up a shed policy (I'm not making this up) the plots will be released.

Put it this way, I'm not allowing myself to get excited just yet ....

My Pear Cake

I'm blogging this recipe do I don't forget about it! I'm making a concerted effort to use up my bottled fruit at the moment but we're getting a bit fed up of quince and cider poached pear crumble so I've moved onto sponge cakes. This is basically a classic 3 egg sponge mix featuring the ever versatile Aspall's Cyder Jelly as a simple sticky glaze.

Pear Cake.
3 eggs (preferably laid by taciturn hens sheltering from the drizzle under a patio table)
6oz butter
6oz brown sugar
6 oz Self Raising wholemeal flour
Tsp vanilla extract
Bottled or poached pears to taste
1/4 jar Cyder Jelly.

Pre-heat the oven to gm 3. Cream butter and sugar together, add the vanilla, beaten eggs and 3 pinches of flour and mix together. Lastly, add the flour and combine. I used about 4 of my pears bottled in red wine but they are quite small. If you don't have bottled pears you could use ordinary poached pears. Chop them into bite sized pieces and stir into the cake mix. Bake for about 40-50 minutes. Heat the Cyder Jelly in a pan so it melts. When the cake comes out of the oven make holes in it with a skewer then pour the warm jelly over the top. Leave it to cool in the tin.

V yummy served warm with clotted cream or vanilla ice cream.

Cyder glazed pork Shoulder

Just a very brief post to record the pork recipe I made last night as, even I say so myself, it was delicious! The Pork was from Waveney Farm who I visited on my Road Trip and the cyder jelly I made myself.



Cyder Glazed Pork Shoulder
Boned and rolled pork shoulder approx 1.5kg.
2tbsp cyder jelly
1tbsp cyder vinegar
generous splosh of soy sauce.

Pre heat the oven to GM 8, put the pork in for 30 mins, then turn down to heat to GM3. Mix together the other ingredients. After an hour, take the meat out and pour a few spoonfuls of the cyder mixture over the meat. Put the meat back in the oven for another half hour, then repeat so the total cooking time at GM3 is 2hrs.

Yummy!

Ribsticking, warming and healthy.

That's my hyperbolic claim for my mushroom and shin beef casserole! I'm very fond of shin beef because it's cheap and full of flavour. It needs to be cooked long and slow to make sure that it's meltingly tender, my butcher recommends 8 hours in the slow cooker. Speaking of butchers, today I used supermarket shin beef for the first time and wasn't terribly impressed. The butcher will cube the beef for me, whereas the supermarket won't, he will also trim the fat off before weighing it but I was disappointed to discover my supermarket offering was cunningly packaged to hide several large chunks of fat which went straight in the bin.

Admittedly I'd rather be using a bottle of good ale in this recipe, but seeing as we're in healthy January I'm forgoing the alcohol and using other, less calorific, ingredients. Still, chin up, there's nothing diety about this rich, warming, toothsome dish.


Mushroom and beef casserole.
About 1.5kg shin beef, cubed and trimmed of large pieces of fat
About 5 large field mushrooms
1/4 pack Merchant Gourmet dried mushrooms
500g carton passata
1/2 teaspoon chilli flakes
2 heaped teaspoons cornflour
Mushroom ketchup

Bung everything in a slow cooker except the cornflour and mushroom ketchup. No need to mess about with browning etc Jamie Oliver said it wasn't worth bothering with as it doesn't make any difference to the finished product so in the name of brevity I'm happy to believe him. Don't worry if it looks a bit dry, juice will come out of the meat and the mushrooms over the cooking time. Leave it on low for at least 8hrs. Give it a stir, if it looks a bit thin add the cornflour and a generous shake of mushroom ketchup.

I think the key to this dish is not to ruin your good intentions by serving it with a pile of buttery mash or roasted potatoes. Some green veg goes nicely and looks pretty or if you want a carbs substitute, pan fried Jerusalem artichokes, roasted butternut squash or turnip fill the void nicely.

Oh the weather outside is frightful ....

.... but the fire is so delightful, and since we've no place to go - Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Well, we knew last night that today was going to be a doozy and, sure enough, we woke to a thick, thick blanket of snow. The morning started with a phone call which was literally: "Hellothisistheschoolwe'reclosedtoday.Byeee!" click, brrrrrr. "um, ok" so the Christmas holidays started a day early in Norfolk. Willow was surprisingly glum about it as she missed her end of term party and didn't get to take in her home made cards and presents for the teachers. It was a sensible decision though, as the roads are treacherous. Last night's school disco taxi run was terrifying as the brakes on the car became frighteningly temperamental.

I wish I'd had the foresight to harvest the remainder of my mizuna crop as it the snow has given it an odd, almost translucent look I recognise from the frosty bit at the back of the salad drawer in the fridge. Still, my 'winter salad mix' I'm growing in the mini greenhouse turns out to be quite heavy on the mizuna so all is not lost. The snow has also seen off the last of the radish crop but only the tiny ones remained anyway. Feathers seems remarkably unphased by the white stuff though I do feel sorry for her out there (her snowy coop is pictured) and have been giving her extra rations of mealworms and sunflower seeds to build her up a bit.

To occupy ourselves at home today we made Jamie's Tangerine Jelly from 'Jamie's Family Christmas' on tv last night. Willow had fun squeezing all the tangerines, I've never made jelly from scratch before but the whole thing was remarkably easy. The jellies are quite lovely, very intensely flavoured and grown up, my thoughts are turning to Cointreau, I'm sure a shot or two could be squeezed in somewhere .....

The recipe doesn't seem to be on the Channel 4 website so I've transcribed it from the tv:
Jamie's Wibbly Wobbly Jelly.
600ml tangerine juice (approx 20 tangerines)
5 sheets gelatin
Small lump fresh ginger
Sugar to taste

Soak the gelatin in warm water to soften. Put half the juice in a pan. Grate the ginger and squeeze out the juice and add to the pan. Add the gelatin and gently heat, stirring til it melts. Add in the rest of the tangerine juice, taste and sweeten if desired. Strain into glasses and chill for a couple of hours.

Jamie served his with vanilla flavoured live yoghurt and chocolate curls but we didn't bother, was still yummy.

And so the festive baking begins!

Back in the summer I feared my tomatoes weren't going to ripen so I picked a whole load green and made Green Tomato Mincemeat. It does sound odd but really the green tomato just replaces the green apple which is rather more conventionally used in mincemeat recipes. It produces a fairly light tasting mincemeat which suits my palate, there is no discernible 'tomatoey' taste whatsoever. To be honest though, just about anything smothered in suet, brandy, mixed spice and nutmeg would taste like mincemeat!

So, what to do with 6lbs of homemade mincemeat? Mince Pies? Check. I took some to my first jam sale last weekend to give away as samples of the mincemeat, however, I was forbidden from using them as the organisers of the fete were selling their own mince pies so I brought them home again. They are now nestling safely in the freezer awaiting a festive defrost in a couple of weeks.

Today we are on day 3 of house arrest with poorly children so to stave off cabin fever I've abandoned them to Cbeebies and locked myself in the kitchen to make Mincemeat Muffins. I used this recipe on Recipe Zaar but adapted it slightly to use what I have in my cupboards, plus I've anglicised the weights and measures. I also decided to leave out the sugar on the original recipe (there's plenty of sweetness in the icing) and use wholemeal flour. It gives the muffins a taste which is vaguely reminiscent of carrot cake and also shares that sense that if you sort of half close your eyes and squint a bit you can convince yourself that they're actually healthy.

Mincemeat Muffins.
50g chopped walnuts
1 pear, bottled in spiced cider, chopped (or chopped apple)
1 large egg
175ml apple juice
75ml vegetable oil
350g mincemeat
225g self raising wholemeal flour
1tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon

Icing
100g Icing sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 or 4 tsp apple juice

In a large bowl mix together the egg, apple juice and oil. Stir in the mincemeat and chopped walnuts and pear/apple. In a separate bowl mix together flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Add to the egg mixture and mix til just combined.

Fill a muffin tray lined with paper muffin cases about 2/3 full and bake at gm6 for 20 minutes.

To make the icing mix the cinnamon into the icing sugar and stir in enough apple juice to make a thickish icing (don't spill the apple juice in a cackhanded fashion and thin the icing beyond salvage. That's a bad idea. And I didn't do it. Honest). Spread the icing on the warm muffins.


If these cakes survive long enough I'll lob in the freezer alongside the mince pies but they're so warm and spicy and yummy they may not see tomorrow to be honest ....

Wild mushrooms and leftover chicken

Yesterday was a lovely day. We broke our mushroom hunting duck with a little help from some friends (well, an awful lot of help if the truth be told) Adam and I have shied away from mushroom collecting in the past mainly down to our inherent reluctance to poison the family. If you flick through a mushroom identification book almost every edible mushroom seems to carry the caveat "Not to be confused with the deadly poisonous (but almost identical) Stinking Hornbeam of Death!" - or similar (though, ironically the black Trumpet of Death fungus is actually edible). But some friends who have a history of wild mushroom gathering and subsequently clinging to life invited us along on their forage so we decided to give it a go.

It was, apparently, ideal mushroom gathering weather, bright and warm after a period of rain. You'll be relieved to hear we didn't eat the Fly Agaric pictured but what we did find were a large patch of Boletus something-or-other, closely related to ceps but not quite ceps. It was a hugely rewarding and rather exciting experience. It's totally different to gathering wild fruit as once you know where a fruit tree is you can reliably go back year after year and be sure that, weather conditions permitting, you'll have a crop of fruit. Mushrooms are way more random in that, you can identify a likely environment, you may know there's a history of mushrooms in that area, but you still can't be sure where the damn things are! You need to rummage around in the leaf litter (where they're very well camouflaged) and it's down to sheer luck whether you find what you're looking for or not.

We adults got rather over excited and raced around the bracken patch like loons once we found our Boletus. Even the children got quite carried away, screeching "Mushroom!" every time they found one though they were under strict instructions not to touch any themselves.

I think the main benefit for Adam and I was the confidence building. We've ordered ourselves a field guide to mushrooms and will happily have another go at mushroom foraging under our own steam. Here's how I used some of our box of mushrooms:

Leftover chicken and wild mushroom pie.
200g chopped mushrooms
2 cloves garlic
300g leftover cooked chicken
75g butter
25g flour
200ml chicken stock
Thyme (fresh or dried)
1 medium potato

Melt 50g of the butter, add the mushrooms and garlic and a pinch of salt. Cook over a medium heat until all their liquid is released, then turn the heat up to boil the liquid off. Add the cooked chicken.

In a separate pan, melt the rest of the butter then add the flour to make a roux. Pour in the chicken stock and whisk to form a smooth sauce. Pour over the chicken and mushroom mixture, add the thyme and some seasoning and mix. Put into an ovenproof dish. Slice the potato thinly and layer over the top in a hotpot fashion and dot with butter.

Bake at Gas Mark 6 for about 30 mins or until the potato is golden on top and the filling heated through.

Sloe Jelly with Port.

Oh good Lord, what a day. The weather out there is just foul, earlier on we ducked out into town to buy some football boots for Willow. The walk from the car to the sports shop was about 3 minutes and in that 3 minutes all 4 of us got soaked to the skin. It's cold, it's windy, it's wet. Ugh.

On the bright side, it's perfect weather for locking myself in a warm, steamy kitchen with a bubbling jam pan for an hour or two. I'm experiencing that familiar end of season "Quick! What can I make!" panic, when I frantically scour the hedgerows for the last remnants of wild fruit before retiring til summer. My last minute forage turned up the last few wilding apples still clinging stubbornly to the trees plus a wealth of sloes (not purple bullace). I'm not sure what made me think of adding port, I'd never even tasted it before I bought a bottle last weekend with this recipe in mind, it just kind of sounded right and, luckily, it tastes right too.

Sloe Jelly with Port.
700g sharp, wild apples
300g sloes
sugar and port (see method for quantity)

Roughly chop the apples and throw them into a pan with the sloes. Add enough water to almost cover the fruit. Bring to the boil and them simmer til soft. Strain in a jelly bag (or colander lined with muslin) for several hours. Measure the strained juice and add 1lb sugar and 2tbsp port per pint. Boil til setting point is reached and pot in the usual way. The yield is about 2.5lbs per pint of juice.

I'm very pleased with the final product and judging by the squabbles over who gets to lick the pan, it's going to be popular. The port gives the jelly a delicious sweetness and depth, though I think if I make it again I'd increase the amount of port as it's quite subtle. I'm now vaguely disappointed that I got a chicken out of the freezer for tomorrow's roast rather than mutton as I'm sure it would make an ideal partner for my sloe and port jelly.

Next task - Medlars!

Yellow Bullace Jam.

Just look at the colour, isn't it magnificent? That's something of a relief as the fruit looked suspiciously dark once it had defrosted. It's got a very sharp, tangy flavour which I really like in a jam and also makes it useful from a culinary point of view. Warmed and mixed with a bit of white wine vinegar, garlic and chilli it would make a lovely, Chinese style, pouring sauce for tuna or pork.

Anyhoo, the recipe:

2 kilos yellow bullace
2.5 kilos sugar
water.

Put the bullace (with stones) into a large pan and add some water to stop them sticking. As my fruit were frozen they gave out their juice readily and didn't need much water, if you're using fresh, keep a close eye at this stage, adding more if needed to keep the fruit at a runny consistency.

When the fruit has collapsed, take the pan off the heat and skim off the stones. I used a slotted spoon, put the stones into a sieve and rubbed them around the sieve to release any juice or flesh still clinging to them.

Add the sugar and stir til dissolved, then boil steadily til setting point is reached. Spoon into hot jars and seal. Makes about 10 jars.

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.

Finished Cordial

Here's our finished elderflower cordial. Willow loves it, Xanthe declared it "Horrible", oh well, you can't win 'em all!

Elderflower Cordial

25 - 30 elderflower heads
1.8 k sugar
1 litre water
2 lemons (or 1 lemon and 1 orange)
75g citric/tartric acid

Make a sugar syrup by heating the water and adding the sugar, stir until dissolved. Put in a bowl, add the zest from the lemons. Slice the lemons and add them too. Cut the stalks off the flowers (and shake off any creepy crawlies) and add them and the citric acid. Leave to steep for 24hrs (don't worry, it's supposed to smell like cat pee at this stage!) Strain through a muslin and keep in the fridge, can also be frozen.

Last year we also made elderflower gin (I didn't like it but Dad did) and elderflower champagne. If I find time later I'll post those recipes too.

First forage of the season

This time of year makes my soul sing, it's lovely to feel the sun on my back again and I'm quite giddy with the tantalising promise of free dinners to come. The hedgerows can't offer anything too substantial just yet but there are fresh greens in abundance.

This year I've tried the amusingly named Jack by the Hedge for the first time. In the absence of a local supply of wild garlic I was intrigued by the reported garlicky tang of this wild herb which dominates the hedgerows locally. A tentative nibble by the roadside was not encouraging, it was bitter in the extreme. Being a determined type I tried again, this time smaller leaves from a different location and they were much more pleasant. Strong tasting, hot and peppery. More akin to mustard than garlic in my humble opinion.

We discovered thick clumps of it growing in the cemetery which is ideal as it's a nice safe place for the children to help with the picking. We collected a generous pile of leaves, back home I chopped them finely and added white wine vinegar and a pinch of sugar (like making mint sauce) hand chopping is more effective than using a food processor as the herb is chopped smaller. Next time I'm going to try pounding it in a pestle and mortar to see if I can get a smoother texture.

The resulting sauce is lovely, verdant and refreshing and goes very well with chicken and fish and not overpoweringly strong.

And guess what I found growing in our neglected, half wild front garden yesterday? A single stalk of Jack by the Hedge!