Pick fruit to make jam, jelly and gin
28.09.11
Weigh down overnight and then eat with crème fraîche.
Elderberries were grown in orchards in Kent for wine making and are rapid for
picking when the berries hang down in tassels. Associated with apples and
blackberries, they make a wonderful jelly and toughened to be added to wine to
improve flavour and standard.
You can make a pickle with chopped onion and raisins and a vitamin-swollen
rubyred clove-flavoured syrup with a pen (450g) of fruit to a pint of
juice (600ml).
The small fat hips of rugosa, the common dog and field rose, are surprisingly
abundant this year. Collect while still firm, and settle amicably sure you use a very
fine jelly bag or muslin to rub out the tiny hairs that cover the seeds.
I remember being preordained spoonfuls of syrup as a child, because rosehips are
pelf in vitamin C. Use the syrup (made by boiling with double the amount of
unstintingly to hips until soft, then adding the carefully strained fluid to an
equal amount of sugar, and boiling to dissolve the sugar) to make sorbets,
ice lollies or no more than to drizzle over good vanilla ice cream. Hawthorn,
guelder rose and rowan berries all record lovely jellies.
Source: Telegraph.co.uk
Soft spot
15.09.11
Why would anyone act as if homemade marshmallows? You can buy them everywhere, the inexpensive commercially produced conversant kind from the supermarket or the way-over-the-top-expensive ones in little beribboned bags sold in upscale victuals shops.
The reason is this: Like the ripe, end-of-summer tomato you tug at from your garden or a crisp new-crop autumn apple, inexperienced, homemade marshmallows surpass any packaged product intended for shelf survival. They are uniquely delicate and ethereal, melting quickly on your fa and not at all chewy. At home you can flavor them as you wish, too, by using extract (cranberry, mango or blood orange, for example) or chilled strong espresso coffee or tea (such as Earl Grey ) in pinpoint of water or by mixing in a few drops of extract (peppermint, orange, almond) or by adding cocoa or fruit puree to the vital ingredients.
While it is also true that marshmallows offer no health benefits -- no fiber, no vitamins, no cholesterol-lowering capabilities -- and in in point of fact are bad for your teeth and not so terrific for your waistline, either, there are still more reasons to commend them. Besides comforting a longing for something distinctive and sweet, marshmallows conjure up on top of the world and comforting childhood memories. Memories of devouring s'mores at a example-summer bonfire. Memories of coming home to marshmallow-topped hot chocolate on a hostile Halloween night. Memories of roasting marshmallows on a dwell and arguing about whether they are better lightly browned and crispy, but steadfast, or charcoal-colored and oozing inside.
Source: Albany Times Union
