Hi All, so this is my first ever blog! As you will soon find
out, I’m the slightly wacky one. I love to try out new things and since this
year is our first ever year owning an allotment you may be hearing about some
of my green-fingered (and possibly a little muddy) exploits in the near future.
I am (I must admit) quite easily distracted by life in general – I guess 3
children under the age of 8, a darling hubby (some of the time!), 2 Jack
Russell terriers and a cat called Willow can do that to you – however, I DO
seem to have more momentary lapses in concentration than most!
Off the top of my head I can think of quite a few
time-keeping ‘mishaps’ that have occurred only this week. i.e. Sending darling hubby off to the dentist – who
he hates – only for him to phone me 5 minutes later from the car asking me
politely to check the calendar – the conversation went something like this –
Me: “Oh. Oh yes..... (studying calendar closely...) it does say next week,
sorry!” Him: (calmly) “Yes I thought it might, since the building is all locked
up...” Me: “Ooops, sorry! Oh would you mind buying some milk on the way home
please?!” He does take my ‘little mistakes’ so well ha ha.
The second ‘little mishap’ involved my getting my gorgeous
girly Tillianne (6 years old) completely ready for a birthday party; pretty
dress, hair plaited and put up, card made completely from scratch, trip to the
shops to choose last minute (of course!) presents for the twins birthday,
pre-party photo shoot....
So we got to their house and thought to myself – this looks
a bit quiet – said mildly to Tillianne “Since we’re early I think we might just
nip home and check the invite darling” only to find out that yes, the date on
the invite is indeed in 3 weeks time. I console myself with the fact that at
least we didn’t knock on the door. Another ‘oops’ moment in my life. Ha. It’s
what makes life interesting I promise!
Ok, so this week I’m going to tell you how to make Elderflower champagne. Another first for
me, hopefully it will be delicious in about 2 week’s time. Here in south Wales
the elder trees are in full flower around now, so this is the perfect time to
have ago. We had lots of fun foraging for flowers with Xavier as our helper:
 |
| Elderflower (Sambucus nigra) |
You will need:
8 large elderflower heads
4 lemons, washed and 2 cut into slices
8 litres of water
1.25kg (2 1/4lb) sugar
4tbsp of white wine vinegar
4tbsp of white wine vinegar
Method
1.
Put the sugar into a large, sterilised bucket.
Boil 8 litre (1 ¾ gallons) of water and pour it over the sugar to dissolve it
and leave to cool (this takes AGES and if you are like me you will be very
impatient!)
2.
Shake the elderflower heads to remove any
insects and add to the sugar solution with the juice of 2 of the lemons, the
lemon slices and the white wine vinegar. Cover with a cloth and leave for one
day. (I left mine for 2 days as life, as usual, got in the way).
3.
Strain though a fine sieve or muslin cloth (or
old duvet if you are me!) into a clean, sterilised bucket, squeezing the
flowers as you do so to release more flavour.
4.
Using a sterilised funnel, transfer into
bottles, leaving 2 cm (3/4 in) at the top. Seal and store in a dark place. (N.B
make sure you release the gas every so often especially with glass bottles as I
have heard horror stories of them exploding in people’s cellars!) They are
ready to drink in 10 – 14 days.
Love Georgie x
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