Elderflower Cordial

I love the taste of Elderflower cordial and it's particularly rewarding to know you can make it so cheaply that you'll never have buy an expensive bottle of it ever again.

Elderflowers typically burst into flower at the end of May and you can spot them in many places and smell their beautiful summer scent.

The important thing about choosing and picking Elderflowers for consumption is to choose a good healthy bush or tree away from pollution so avoid the roadside sites. The best time to pick is after a spell of rain, followed by a warm dry day or two of sunshine. Choose the pure white large heads, without signs of dry, browning petals and don't pick from too low down, to avoid risk of picking contaminated blossoms!

Once you have a large carrier bag full, get home and start the recipe as follows:

Elderflower Cordial

20 large heads of elderflower
1.8kg granulated sugar
1 litre water
75g citric acid (from chemist)
2 lemons

Place the elderflowers in a large bowl.
In a pan, mix the sugar with the water and gently bring to the boil, stiring until the sugar has disolved.
Pour over the elderflowers and stir in the citric acid. Grate in the zest of two lemons and then slice the lemons and add the slices to the bowl too.
Cover and leave for 24 hours.
Strain through a jelly bag or a double layer of muslin, then decant into sterilised bottles and store in a cool, dark place.

It is vitally important that bottles are scrupulously clean and sterilised. This way the cordial will keep for several months. An alternative is to freeze the cordial in plastic bottles.

Try it served with fizzy water or gin, or even spooned over vanilla ice cream.

The birds and the seeds

I love my new blackbird family but I'm struggling with Daddy B tramping over my beds looking for worms to feed the young 'uns. Its really hard to know what has priority? I have struggled to get Dwarf French beans to grow in the past; the seeds rot in the soil only then to be frazzled by the sun once they emerge from the earth. The finally survivors look set to work until I discovered Tess, my dog, munching the tops off!

I have now got a few precious seedlings above ground, looking healthy and protected by a mesh cage, but what did I find today? Yes, a seedling pulled up and earth disturbed! The cheeky little BIrdy must have gone under the cage to get to a meaty morsel! I returned the injured seedling to the earth but I have no idea if my emergency 911 treatment will allow it to live long enough to see bean producing days. Why am I so unlucky with french beans I wonder? Maybe its revenge for not favouring German over GCSE French!!!

The Miracle of life

Chris was outside pruning our buddleia and found a birds nest. He picked Tom up to look inside and then came running to me saying, "Mummy, I've just seen some chicks." Not quick believing him we investigated the nest and he was quite right. Amazingly there were two tiny blackbird chicks, eyes still fused shut and two unhatched eggs. We quickly left the tree alone and allowed mummy blackbird to continue to nurse her babies. She is a grand looking bird who I'd seen in our garden regularly. She perches on the compost bin quite unfazed by Tess, our dog who watches with interest.

About an hour ago I saw her fly off to gather food so I took an opportunity to photograph the nest. Sure enough, the chicks were healthy and now three! I feel overwhelmed by the fragility of these tiny creatures. Mother nature sure is wonderful.

Honey and Walnut Bread

My foody friend Dave asked for my recipe for Honey and Walnut loaf. Although it contains nothing grown in my garden, I did feel it fitted our self-sustainable lifestyle and more importantly, a good enough recipe to share here.

We have a good quality bread maker with a seed dispenser, which is really important if you want good bread. It also has a timer, which is great if you like hot fresh bread in the morning. We have the Panasonic SD255 (shown below) and I can really recommend it. We have used it almost every day for over 2 years and it is still going strong.

The other important thing (to us at least) is that you use good ingredients. We make bread almost every day so wanted to buy flour in bulk to save money. We found a fabulous supplier here in Cambridgeshire who sources and grinds the wheat locally in his own mill. Fosters Mill in Swaffham Prior is one of the three remaining working tower mills in Cambridgeshire and the owner Jonathan Cook is helpful and a pleasure to buy from.

They grind organic wheat, certified by the Soil Association and wherever possible, is sourced in East Anglia. We buy large 25kg sacks of flour so we don’t need to use the car too often on shopping trips. The wholewheat is £24 for a 25kg sack, while the white is £30; a bit more expensive but stops the kids complaining about ‘brown bread’.

I really recommend getting your flour from Fosters Mill. They also supply smaller bags if you don’t want a huge sack and you can buy mail order too.

So, on with the bread recipe.

HONEY & WALNUT BREAD

Ingredients

• 1 tsp dried yeast
• 250g wholewheat flour
• 225g strong white flour
• 2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 tbsp Honey
• 1 ¼ tsp salt
• 300ml Water

In seed dispenser tray:

• Raisins
• Sunflower seeds
• Pumpkin seeds
  
• Roughly broken walnuts (not too small)

You need to add all the ingredients in the correct order as listed above.

Setting is Wholewheat > Bake > Raisin and takes 5 hours to bake. You will need to check your machine for its own settings.

Here is a photo of the loaf I made today. I hope you have success and let me know how you got on baking your own.

Lettuce gather here together....

The start of summer always brings a desire for fresh crisp salad. Again I cheated and bought some small plug plants from our local farmers market. A Lactuca Sativa and a Cos. After a couple of weeks they have grown well and although we have eaten most of the Red Sativa, the lovely crisp cos is 'hearting up*' nicely and will be ready to cut and eat any day. (*Thanks Geoff, for that term!)
The rocket has been successful and I am totally taken by the taste. Now I know why it is so popular. You can see the pot I sowed in April has produced lots of yummy leaves which are being eaten daily by my husband for his lunch. I have planted another 2 pots but now need to buy more seeds as I think my summer 2010 obsession is certain to be rocket salad!

Blast off....we have Rocket!

I got some free seeds from the BBC Good Food Magazine for Rocket. I have never really eaten rocket but hey! lets give it a go....

N'er cast a clout

My dear old Grandma used to be very fond of the expression 'N'er cast a clout, til May is out'. It used to puzzle me as a child as to its meaning, but I did understand that it basically meant that even if the sun is shining, wait until the end of May to rely on the weather REALLY being nice.

April has crept up on me this year and today has been one of the most glorious days of sunshine so far this year. I thought of my Grandma as I threw off the winter cardigan and pottered around the garden with bare arms.

Well, I don't know if this good weather will last but I have taken the risk and planed a lot of new seeds today. I have planted directly into the ground, some Apollo Runner beans and Coriander Seed, as well as transplanting my Garden pea seedlings from their home in the greenhouse, to their new home ready to climb the netting and produce me a bumper crop again this year. It has worked out really well, as the pea seeds I put straight into the ground a few weeks ago are now above the soil and starting to develop, whereas the greenhouse ones are quite well established. This means I will have a succession of peas to enjoy.

I am surprised by the Snap Peas (Mange Tout). Last year I did really well but they seem slow to get going this year. I only got about 40% seedlings to the number of seeds I planted in the greenhouse. The ones I planted straight in the ground have been a wee bit more successful and I have about a 80% success getting seedlings. Last year, everyone was a success! I planted another 3 squares of Snap peas today in the hope that they will catch up?

So Grandma, if you are watching, please forgive the bare arms today and send me some more sunshine. The garden and I could really do with more of it!

Seeds Vs Plants?

I have to admit I was lured by 'off the peg' veggies today. After a visit to Histon & Impington Farmers Market, I decided that I'd be a bit of a cheat and buy some tomato plants. I enjoyed having different varieties last year and wanted to experiment with more again this summer. I didn't want to buy 4 or 5 different packets of seeds so I bought the plants at 80p each. I know its an expensive say of doing it but never mind.

In my own defense, I have set out some spinach seeds, basil seeds and sown some more peas and snap peas straight into the ground outside. Only thing I need to get now are some yellow and green courgette seeds..... off to garden centre!

Last of the Parsnips

Today I pulled up the last of my parsnips. After seeing the tops die back over the winter to show nothing on the surface, I noticed last week that I was seeing new shoots above the topsoil. I figured this meant that it was time to pull them up and have one last parsnip feast. It's weird how some of them were really large but others were diddy, almost like a baby carrot. I wonder if they were starting to go to seed? ....Well, they are out now!

An update on late summer crop from 2009!

Guess I was too busy to actually post anything, but thought I could just add a few shots of the successful crops we had late Summer 2009.Overgrown Courgettes after being babysat while we were on holiday!
The Cucumbers were a success and we will be doing these again this year.
Lettuce nested among the marigolds!
Pumpkins supported by tights to stop them snapping under the weight!
And then being cooked ready for Pumkin Pie...

Tom thought these giant courgettes were funny!

Springing up all over again

Well we are now officially into Spring 2010 and its that time again to think about planting for our veggie garden. We have been very lazy until now and have done very little in the garden. I knew we had a few sorry looking leeks still growing and perhaps some parsnips. I decided to dig for the parsnips today and was delighted to find three beds full of sumptuous parsnips. They have survived the winter and all the snow we have had, and so tonight we will eat roast parsnips.


I have been busy searching for other parsnip recipe ideas too as we have about another 18 parsnips still in the ground which will need using up in the next couple of weeks. Can you make Parsnip Curry I wonder?

Chris turned over the compost and helped me top up the raised beds today to get the soil ready for outside planting.

I have now also done my first seedling planting today. It was s glorious sunny day and the greenhouse was 30 degrees and lovely and warm. This inspired me to plant my first veggies of the season, the wonderful peas and mange tout.


Last summer we tried to grow cabbage, cauliflower and brussel sprouts, but they were attacked so badly by caterpillars, we never actually ate any of them. So, I have decided not to bother this year. We loved the peas and mange tout so much I will be double the amount I grow this year. Bring on the peas please Louise!