Early Rhubarb

We were lucky enough recently to be given some rhubarb, (thanks nan) so decisions had to be made as to what to make, the rhubarb in our own garden is not quite ready yet so we will have that to look forward in a few weeks. The children absolutely love making things in the kitchen so we decided to make things that interest them, like a rhubarb cordial and some ice cream, it is important to us to show the children that the things they love can be made simply at home, with a few natural ingredients and no additives.

We used 500g of chopped rhubarb in 500ml of water, simmer for 10 minutes, then leave it to infuse for about an hour.  We have made this for quite a few years now, last year we doubled the amount of ingredients as we had an obscene amount of rhubarb to use up.

After an hour sieve out the rhubarb pulp and pass the remaining liquid through a straining bag, as you can see above it is definitely worth straining to get rid of the remaining rhubarb pulp as it leaves the cordial clear and such a beautiful colour. Then return this to the saucepan with about 200g of sugar added, reheat just to dissolve the sugar. You can vary the amount of sugar used depending on the level of sweetness required but do bear in mind rhubarb is quite tart, if you are using other fruits less sugar can be used.

Then the cordial can be put into a bottle of your choice, it makes about 500ml and should keep for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator, although ours never lasts more than a couple of days as it tastes so good. Keep the sieved out rhubarb as it can still be used in pies, crumbles, ice cream (as we did) or just eaten with yoghurt.

This is a photograph of the finished rhubarb cordial, diluted with water... it tastes lovely and it is my daughters favourite colour so that is definitely a bonus. We have used the leftover rhubarb to make ice cream as we have recently bought an ice cream maker. Last year I put some recipes on here for our hand made ice cream, as we used to make it this way. We did however still use a similar recipe to our original ones.

So here it is... we used 200ml of cream, 100ml of milk about 200g of the sieved out rhubarb and 100g of  organic strawberries (mashed or chopped) for colour and sweetness and the ice cream maker did the rest! This tasted amazing, so light and refreshing and there certainly wasn't enough of it at all so I'm going to have to make some more tomorrow. If you don't have an ice cream maker, check out the link above as we used to make our ice cream by hand this way and it did still taste as good.

So two things successfully made today that the children love very much from a very small amount of rhubarb, and great fun was had in the kitchen by all. Cordials can be made from many fruits but we tend to use far less sugar for other types of fruit but this is rhubarb!

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...