Berry Cordial

Following on from my last post, we are still inundated with various berries, our currants have had especially large crops this year. As I hate things to go to waste we have decided to make a berry cordial for the children to enjoy in the late summer sunshine.

We have used 500g of mixed berries, make sure these are clean but there is no need to remove the stalks or pips as we will be putting the mixture through a straining bag to remove them later.

Place the berries in a pan, add a litre of water and bring to the boil. I have used a potato masher whilst the mixture is cooking to help release the juice from the berries.

Turn of the heat after about 10 minutes as the berries should have broken down and leave the mixture to infuse and cool slightly. As you can see in the photographs the juice is a beautiful, rich jewel colour.

After it has cooled slightly pour the mixture through a straining bag or some muslin to get rid of all stalks and pips and leave you with a lovely clear liquid.

Measure your liquid once strained as you need to add approximately half the amount of sugar to liquid when you return it to the heat. I had 700g of liquid once the straining had finished so I intended to add 350g of sugar but as the berries I used were very sharp tasting we found we needed to add a little more to suit the children's taste buds. Once your liquid is returned to the heat and the sugar has dissolved your cordial should look quite syrupy and can now be bottled up into a sterilised bottle.

This is a cordial so it needs to be diluted in water like a squash when it comes to drink it. This smells amazing and very strongly of the berries added and the children loved their drink. We also used some of this diluted cordial to make our ice lollies for warm summer days.

Garden Love

    We are not lucky enough as yet have an allotment, so my poor hard working husband has to fit as much as he can in our garden. We have been blessed with some good crops though, so we definitely owe the garden a little love. One of our best croppers has been our blackcurrant bush as you have seen in previous posts it has produced many fruits, at the moment it is in the middle of a second crop. Sometimes you get surprises, the plums below were picked today from our new plum tree, which must only be three foot tall, we certainly weren't expecting any plums from it this year.

    Not only is the garden good for growing things it has excellent educational potential for our children. Right from the start they have been involved in the seed selection, planting, care and harvesting, and they have enjoyed every minute (especially the eating). We still have the "bean in the jar" science experiment on the kitchen window ledge in spring, but this is because my husband gets a little concerned if my son pulls up the beans to look at the roots.

    They also love their bug hunts, but even this has advantages when the cabbage white caterpillars are on your brassicas and someone needs to pick them off. There is great excitement in the tomato bed too, as this year we decided to grow four different kinds of tomato just to see the different growing styles and tastes, two are pictured below the plum tomato and the marmande.

   So, I'd like to say thank-you to my garden, for the bountiful crops, for the education provided to my children, for the fun times, even for the frogs and toads that jump out of the undergrowth and scare me half to death and the abundant mini beasts that I've had thrust under my nose... to the chants of "WOW, Mum have you ever seen one of these?"
    How about you? I hope I'm not alone with the garden love thing.

Blackcurrant ice cream

   I'm not one for really complicated recipes, I know they are much loved by food connoisseurs, but speaking as a busy mum the simpler the better for me, especially if I only have a few minutes spare to wow the kids.

   We have been making good use of the blackcurrants from the bush in our garden, which always has a very large crop every year. This is one of the many things we have made from our harvest.
 

  We used about 250g of blackcurrants, after washing and preparing they were liquidized with 3 tablespoons of juice (any type can be used apple, orange, or we have even used squash once) and sieve to get rid of any larger bits.

    Then you need to add icing sugar, how much is up to your taste. Blackcurrants are not very sweet so we added about 75g and stirred it in well. If you are using a sweeter fruit, you can use less icing sugar or none at all.

    Now for the creamy piece. we have used about 300ml of cream, and whipped it until it was quite firm.

    Then add the blackcurrant mixture to the cream and stir it in. The colour you get after this is amazing.

All that is left to do now is tip your mixture into a freezable tub, cover with cling film and put into the freezer.  It takes a few hours to freeze in my freezer but I have a big industrial thing, so keep checking it. I prefer to get it out when it's just scoop-able, or you could get it out half an hour before you want to eat it.

   My kids really love making this, I have to say I do too, it tastes incredible, and it is so simple and adaptable. My son loves this and he doesn't even like blackcurrants! He also said that this was his favourite ice cream.

   We have recently been thinking up some really exotic recipes using these same basic guidelines. The measurements here are just a rough guide as we tend to just throw it all in. Why not give it a try, see what flavours you can think of...