30 Days Wild - Day 23

Wednesdays are busy days for us as T is at Playschool all morning and then I pick him up (by bike if the waether is nice) and we go straight to a playgroup for a couple of hours.  Hence we don't get home until about 4:30pm and he's often exhausted.  He does however spend much of his time at Playschool outside, and this week I spent much of my child-free time sitting in the sunshine writing my birthday thank-you cards, so we both had some nature-time in the morning.

When I picked him up he was hot and needed a drink - perfect time for sampling our newly bottled elderflower cordial!

He loves it, as do we.

After supper he was still remarkably full of energy so we headed out for a walk and discovered this incredible field of poppies only a few minutes from our house.  I don't know how we hadn't noticed it before, but I guess in my defence, we usually walk in the opposite direction!  It's a shame the sky wasn't bluer, but it was still a stunning sight.

30 Days Wild - Day 17

Collecting elderflowers to make cordial.

Ted was very keen to do the snipping...  so I had to watch my fingers!

Lemon and Elderflower Self-Saucing Pudding

I've recently started borrowing lots of recipe books from our local library.  Our cookbook shelf is full, and I have far too many books that I haven't cooked enough from, so I'm trying a) not to buy any more, and b) to use the ones I've already got.  But sometimes I feel the 'need' for a fresh crop of recipes to inspire me, so using the library is a perfect option.

Last week I picked up a really nice little book from the 'My Kitchen Table' series entitled '100 Foolproof Suppers' by Audrey-Hepburn-hairalike Gizzi Erskine.  Lots of my foodie friends had been raving about her recipes recently so I was keen to see what all the fuss was about.

First impression?  Brilliant!  I found myself jotting down a long list of recipes that I'd like to try, which is always a great sign.

First off was the Nasi Goreng, or fried rice.  We had been longing to try to recreate this at home as it was one of our very favourite dishes in Brunei.  I don't actually think it's possible to replicate this exactly without a fierce gas-flame and a well-seasoned wok, but this recipe worked  fantastically well with our crappy electric hob and a non-stick frying pan.  We've copied out the recipe to keep, but if you fancy trying it it's online in the Amazon preview of this book. 

Tomorrow I'm trying her Fish Goujons with Mushy Peas and Sweet Potato Wedges, and next week I'm having a go at the Aubergine, Artichoke and Lamb Bolognese (we had roast lamb at the weekend so I'm giving it a few days before we have lamb again)...  but what I REALLY want to blog about is the most amazing pudding which I made last night:

The recipe is actually entitled Lemon and Passion Fruit Self-Saucing Pudding, but my search for passion fruit juice proved, er, fruitless.  I did find a carton of it, but as it was only about 10% passion fruit juice, I thought it wasn't quite right.  Instead I decided to replace the passion fruit juice with Elderflower Cordial.  We've just made a batch of it, as we do most years, and as it's made with lemons I thought it would complement the lemon flavour of the pudding very well.  And, well, I was right; it's perfect.

The recipe can be found on the My Kitchen Table website - just follow this link.  I'm certain that the passion fruit version would be fabulous, but I can whole-heartedly recommend the elderflower.  The only slight issue that I had was that after 45 minutes' cooking the pudding looked perfectly done, with the sponge topping lightly browned.  However, when I dug beneath the surface the custardy sauce was still quite liquid, rather than the texture of lemon curd, as it should have been.  Too impatient to put the whole pudding back in the oven, we simply spooned out portions into bowls and gave each one a minute in the microwave on high, and bingo, the sauce thickened beautifully.

Not exactly the most photogenic of desserts perhaps, but who cares.  We served it with lashings of double cream.  Thanks Gizzi.

Edit:  Having polished off the final portion of this pudding last night, my husband announced that it was lovely, but 'a bit too sweet'.  He probably has a point as the elderflower cordial is very sugary. Perhaps next time I'll cut the sugar in the pudding mix down (by a couple of tablespoons?) to compensate for the addition of the cordial.

Elderflower Cordial

I made a batch of Elderflower Cordial last year and we still have a tub of it in the freezer so I didn't think I'd bother making another batch this Summer, seeing as we're trying to empty the freezer before we go to Brunei.  But then I noticed that there were several elder trees growing in the vicinity of the school...  I decided to indoctrinate my class into the delights of foraging!!

To reassure, we did have a long chat about the possible dangers of eating things 'from the wild' - berries, etc - and how we should always check with an adult before picking and eating anything from the hedgerows, but talk over, we set out to pick the requisite 40 heads of elderflowers needed for the cordial. 

Armed with scissors the task was soon accomplished...

And back in school we soon had ourselves a batch of cordial infusing, and a delightfully fragrant classroom!

We did shake the elderflower heads to remove as many bugs as possible, but you're not meant to rinse the flowers as you then wash all the pollen away.  As you can see, there were still plenty of teeny bugs floating around in the bowl.  You can only imagine the excitement this caused!!

The cordial has now been strained (no more bugs!) and sampled enthusiastically by the whole class.  I'd guess there was a 75% approval rating, which I didn't think was bad, considering how fussy 6-8 year-olds can be.  We still have nearly 2 litres of undiluted cordial left though...  I'm pondering making up jugs of it and selling it at the school gate after school one day this week.

Elderflower Cordial

40 heads of elderflowers
2 lemons, sliced
3 1/4 lb granulated sugar
3oz citric acid (from a chemist)
3 pints boiling water


Mix all the ingredients in a clean container, cover and leave for up to 5 days.  Strain, dilute with water and drink.

Pick Your Own

I have fond childhood memories of 'Pick Your Own' farms. I particularly remember Mum sending my brother and me to pick the strawberries because she had a bad back, so would rather pick fruit standing up. She would head off to pick raspberries while Ben and I would fill our punnets... and our faces... with strawberries! What child is going to complain about that?

So when I realised that there is a PYO farm nearby, I was quickly on the 'phone to find out what was ready for picking. It seems that it's still a little early for raspberries and currants, but I was delighted to hear that they had ripe strawberries and gooseberries, so we headed off for a picking session on Saturday.

Despite being fiendishly prickly, the gooseberries were easy to pick. They were plump and juicy, and the bushes were laden. I love their translucent, stubbly skins.



The strawberries of course necessitated scrabbling about close to the ground, but the reward of pulling back a handful of leaves to find these treasures made the aching back worthwhile.

And obviously there were other rewards too...!

Back at home, I was faced with the reality of nearly 3kg of soft fruit that needed using, and fast. A quick e.mail to Mum gave me the recipe for the Gooseberry and Cinnamon Flan that I remember as a result of those childhood visits to PYO farms, and I also turned some into a compote to accompany elderflower creams (like a very English pannacotta), the recipe for which I discovered in Nigella's How to Eat. (Once the elderflower season is past, these creams can easily be made using cordial, as Australian fellow-blogger Sarah discovered as she was heroically cooking her way through the entire book in a year!)

This still left me with 700g of gooseberries, so I made these into a gooseberry and elderflower jam. The recipe was very simple - equal amounts of fruit and sugar, cooked up with half the amount of water (ie 350ml of water for 700g of fruit and 700g of sugar). Instead of using water, I made up 350ml of elderflower cordial, with about 100ml of cordial and 250ml water. Gooseberries are very high in pectin, so this jam set beautifully. And I think it looks beautiful too, pinkish-orange, gooseberry seeds suspended within.



The strawberries too became jam - strawberry and rhubarb jam to be precise. I struggled to find a recipe for this, but ended up amalgamating several I had found online, one of which being a recent post on David Lebovitz's blog. I used equal weights of these fruits as I had so many strawberries. Both rhubarb and strawberry are low in pectin, so I used a cup of apple juice and the juice of a large lemon to encourage it to set. After much boiling it is still what I would describe as 'soft set' but by no means overly runny. However at one point I was beginning to wonder if I should have followed the advice found in several American versions of this recipe, and added 'Strawberry Jello' to the pan!






I think it must be time for a clotted cream tea...

Rhubarb

Foraging

I've always thought that Autumn was the best time for foraging for food. All those blackberries, hazelnuts, rosehips... But I'm beginning to realise that Spring is just as good - if not better- for harvesting some free food from the hedgerows.

This burst of sunshine over the last week has been amazing, it really lifts the spirits (especially as it coincided so neatly with the half-term holiday). I couldn't help but notice that the hedges are beginning to be dotted with beautiful cream-coloured elderflowers, so headed out on my bike with a basket.



I was a little early to be doing this to be honest - many of the flower-heads were not quite blooming, and many that were were way too high up for me to reach. However, I did manage to fill my basket and soon I was at home rediscovering just how simple it is to make elderflower cordial.



I think that I got this recipe from my parents, several years ago. We have made it before, but didn't make any while we lived in Canada - in fact I struggle to remember whether I even saw elder trees in Ontario..?

Anyway, you simply mix together 40 heads of elderflowers, 3oz citric acid (I got mine from the chemist - just ask at the pharmacy counter), 3 1/4 lb sugar, 2 sliced lemons and 3 pints of boiling water. Mix everything in a large container - a bucket is great, I used a washing-up bowl - cover and leave for 5 days. Helpful hint - rinse the flower heads very well. I have quite a few bugs floating in my cordial! They will of course get strained out. And it's only a bit of extra protein...

After a few days, strain and bottle it. I also like to freeze tubs of it so that it can be scooped straight into a glass and topped up with water, meaning that there is no need for ice-cubes. This also stops the cordial fermenting as can happen if you bottle it.



On the subject of fermenting, I would really like to try elderflower champagne too... I have found several different recipes online for this, some very different from others, but think I'm going to go with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's recipe, which can be found here. I'll let you know how it goes...

My other foraging success has been wild garlic. We discovered this last week, growing in Wendover Woods, so gathered a bag full. The leaves have a very delicate garlicky flavour, almost more like chives, and they can be used like any leafy vegetable.



They are lovely eaten raw as a salad leaf, but I used mine chopped and stirred through cooked pasta with my homemade walnut pesto.



I cycled up to the woods again today to collect some more (to be added to my salad tonight) and found that the leaves of the plants are beginning to turn yellow. I managed to collect enough bright green ones for supper, but I think it's nearing the end of its season. I'm glad we caught it when we did.

Do you forage? What for? Have you ever made Nettle Soup? That might be my next challenge...