Islay finds, makes and bakes...

Got a pound or two of elderberries clogging up your freezer? No? Just me then...

But if you happen to have gone elderberrying (why yes, that is a word, thank you) and now have a tupperware filled with little black gems taking up valuable space in your teeny weeny freezer (remember, you turned the big freezer off ages ago), I can recommend making some elderberry rob.

Remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about going to the Weald and Downland autumn fair and admiring the medicinal stuff from the garden? Well I've been meaning to make elderberry rob since then, so yesterday I searched a few recipes, and then ignored them all and made it up as I went along formed a careful amalgamation of all the information I found. By the way, elderberry rob is basically a spiced elderberry syrup that can be taken to prevent/help cure colds, coughs and other minor ailments.

Incidentally, elderberries are bloody good for you. According the various sites I found, they:
1. Have immune boosting properties
2. Are antioxidants
3. Improve heart health
4. Lower cholestoral
5. Improve vision
6. Have lots of vitamin C in
7. Contain potassium (I think this is a good thing, although I seem to recall a potassium experiment at school that resulted in scary flames...)

So, it's basically marvellous. Here's my recipe:

Elderberry rob with a ginger kick
Ingredients:
Elderberries
Granulated sugar (or whatever sugar is kicking around)
Ground ginger (you could probably use whole ginger and whole cinnamon)
Ground cinnamon
Cloves

Method:
1. Put your elderberries in a big pan, just cover with water, put the lid on (saves energy!) and simmer for 30 mins, stirring occasionally.
2. Strain the liquid through a muslin. I expect that if you were very committed you could strain it overnight through a jelly seive, but I was too impatient
3. Bin the berries, measure the remaining liquid and pour it into a clean pan. Give the jug a quick wash and sterilise it (or a funnel) and some bottles. See here for more information on sterilising.
4. To every pint of liquid add 8oz of sugar, 2 tsp of ground ginger, 1tsp of ground cinnamon and about 20 cloves.
5. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 20 mins or so, until the mixture has thickened into a syrup.
6. Fish out the cloves (or strain it, if you're feeling clever) and pour into bottles, using the sterilised jug/funnel.

Ta da!

To drink, either have a tablespoonful straight from the bottle or dilute in a little warm water and sip. It's nice and gingery! I don't think this would keep for aaaages - probably a month. On my internet trawls I read various things about using alcohol as a preservative to make it last longer, but to be honest if you have a sensible sized freezer you could make up a batch every now and again.

 

Sloe gin yumminess

Now, there are many methods for making sloe gin - do you prick with a fork, freeze, or wait until after the first frost and hope that they haven't all gone? The Cottage Smallholder (interesting blog with lots of recipes from people who clearly have more of an idea what they're talking about than me) carried out an experiment to see which method worked the best. Her results are here.

I had to take sloes when I could get them last weekend (none round here really), so it was the second best method for us - freezing for a few days. And here's what I did:

Sloe gin
Ingredients:
75cl gin (I bought a couple of litres of Sainsbury's standard gin. I hear varying reports on whether the quality of the gin makes a difference, so I've gone one step up from the Basics range, but not all the way to Gordon's)
1lb sloes
6oz granulated sugar

Method:
1) Don't panic too much about the quantities. But put about a pound of sloes into sterile bottles (wide necked enough to fit sloes into, around a litre in size), add about 6oz of sugar, and top up with around 75cl of gin.
2) Shake the bottle (seal it first!) every day for a week or two, then store in a cool dark place for at least a couple of months. Ideally you leave it for around six months, strain and rebottle, but I expect we'll give in and have some at Christmas.

On membrillo and more preserves

First and foremost, I had to reboil my membrillo - I didn't do it for long enough and it just wasn't as dense as I wanted. So now it's all done, potted in ramekins and looking pretty:

 I'm very pleased with it.

Moving on to serious matters - gin. I haven't been able to find any sloes round us, the plants are virtually bare. However, there were plenty in Somerset when we were there this weekend:

 I was so pleased, as sloe gin is one of my favourite things, and I was really looking forward to trying making it this year. I'll do it later in the week and post the recipe (I'll probably try a few permutations, and I promise to report back at Christmas with the successes).

We picked them at my cousin's husband's parents' farm (which, as I may have mentioned before, is a rather wonderful B&B/holiday cottagey place), along with a couple of pounds of almost-ripe pears:

 I have vague plans to lightly poach them and preserve them in syrup, but I haven't really decided whether they're ripe enough for that.

We also found some walnuts there:

I have not the least idea what I'll do with them - perhaps just blend them into a nut butter type thing? Except for the minor detail that I don't actually like nuts. Seemed a shame to just leave them lying on the ground though.

Speaking of preserves, I was pleased to see that my eldeflower cordial was still OK to drink, as of last weekend. I can't find a record of the recipe on the blog - possibly I made it before I started writing it - but I'm already looking forward to making an even bigger batch next year and trying out a few variations on the recipe.

Ten thoughts from my foraging walk this morning

1. The smell of a fir tree apparently has a direct line to the festive cheer portion of the brain
2. An acorn is suprisingly painful when it jumps out of a tree and hits you on the head
3. Wow, it really is autumn - not only are the acorns throwing themselves from oaks, but there are leaves on the floor. And they'reorange
4. I wonder what a walnut tastes like fresh from the tree?
5. An unripe walnut fresh from the tree is absolutely vile
6. Where have all the sloes gone this year? There are almost none on my usual footpath
7. I wonder if Teddy will sleep when we get home and let me start knitting the second sock of the pair I started about two weeks ago
8. Isn't my life nice? For how many people can, ''will l get time to knit' be the biggest question of their day?
9. Ooh, the rosehips are almost there. Not quite deep red enough, but definitely through the 'are we or aren't we blushing?' stage. Can't wait to start trying rosehip cordial, among a million other rosehip recipes
10. I really should take a camera out when I go foraging, it's all very pretty

All the things I'm missing out on

I haven't been foraging for weeks and weeks. First it was a deadline, then it was camping, then adventuring to Holland, and this week I've just been desperately trying to get back on track in the face of a new deadline and a dead washing machine (the joys of renting - the landlord will replace it free of charge, and even a fairly crap modern one will probably be a thousand times more eco/efficient than our current 30 year old model).

Anyway, in all this excitement the foraging has been well and truly neglected, just as we come into autumn, season of harvest. There are all kinds of easy things out at the moment, from rosehips and sloes (mmmm, sloe gin) to hazelnuts and walnuts. Since we are in desperate need of tightening up the budget - two holidays in two weeks does not make for a frugal lifestyle - a bit of foraging would be a Good Thing, so I'm going to schedule in a walk next week.

When I look at how hard it is for me to fit in time for a decent length foraging walk, it's no wonder that people with proper jobs find it impossible to do things like this. I only work two days a week, but fitting everything else into the other five along with keeping Teddy anything approaching happy is hard work! So, anyone out there who is managing any kind of self sufficiency while also having a proper job, give yourself a pat on the back.

A foragey book review

The lovely library has ordered in a book I've been after (I love the library. I may have mentioned this); The Forager Handbook, by Miles Irving.

I haven't read it from cover to cover yet, but a quick skim read suggests it's one of the most comprehensive foraging books I've come across so far. It not only covers most different varieties of every possible edible plant (did you know that there are three different type of sow thistle?), but gives ideas for preparation for most of them. However, it does, I think, assume a degree of knowledge on the part of the forager, as the identification drawings aren't nearly as thorough as those in, for example, Richard Mabey'sFood For Free.

It is also one of the prettiest books I've seen for a long time. You wouldn't think it was a book for frugal foragers, and it would probably look quite at home on a posh coffee table (I don't have a coffee table, so can't tell you for sure).

All in all, definitely worth a read - it's quite cheap on Amazon, or you can follow in my even more cheapskate footsteps and get it from the library (I had to ask my library to order it in, as it's quite a new book and they didn't have it yet).

Now I just need to find some more foraging time...

Foraging: The time is ripe (and so is the fruit)

We've entered the best time of year for foraging beginners, like me. This is because not only is wild food at its most abundant in late summer/early autumn, it's also the time when all the easily identifiable stuff, like blackberries, are ripening, instead of random spring greens that need half an hour to identify each leaf.

My tip for the day is take a tupperware or a ziplock bag with you every single time you leave the house. I've got into the habit of chucking an empty tupperware into the basket under the pram every day (even easier now that I am Monday-Challenging myself to new heights of organisation), but keeping a ziplock bag in your handbag or pocket is doable even for the busiest of souls.

As I'm out and about, I just grab anything that's ripe, from blackberries on the footpath I walk up practically daily with Teddy to the windfall apples from the tree in the park. Rather than trying to persuade myself to go to all the effort of making one small pot of jam at a time, I'm storing the fruit in the (little, still on) freezer, so when I finally have a sensible amount I can start with the recipes.

 I already have getting on for a kilo of blackberries, which (when I've got more) I'm planning to turn into blackberry syrup/cordial, and lots of blackberry jam. Possibly some blackberry ice cream, but I'm thinking I can just mix the syrup with some leftover frozen blackberries for making ice cream at a later date if I want.

 I'm a bit scared of the rosehips, as you need to deal with them carefully to prevent getting any of the hair from the seeds into whatever you make, but apparently you can make yummy syrup, jams and all sorts. Will be good to experiment. I'm also wondering whether I can use the hips in the garden to similar effect, or if they won't have as strong a flavour as the wild dog rose and rosa rugosa.

 I'm also chopping apples and freezing them every time I get a couple more. I've got absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with them (all cookers), but if all else fails they can either get chucked into a christmas chutney or I can make some herby apple jelly to go with roasts. Seems a shame to let them go to waste!

 I've also found a cherry tree, but due to only getting a tiny handful at a time, and being too lazy to stone them, I just keep them in the fruit bowl for snacking on rather than making cherry pie or something ambitious like that. Possibly it's time to think about a smaller fruit bowl though.

I've also (I think) found walnut, hazelnut and sweet chestnut trees. I'm not a massive fan of nuts, but I'm thinking I might be able to create some kind of sugar roasted nut thing for christmas.