Sallygardens Smallholding

Elderberry Syrup Winter Warmer

Quickly go and grab the last of the elderberries (sambucus nigra), grab roughly a kilo if you can. Bring an ID book or a friend you trust in the know. Now you've almost got everything you need to make elderberry syrup and it's really easy to do. Don't be put off if you've tried eating a raw elderberry and the tart flavour almost turned your face inside out because trust me, the syrup is quite delicious. And if delicous isn't enough to persuade you then maybe you'll be swayed by the fact that this fruit is bursting with vitamins and antioxidants. Google elderberry nutrition and you'll also find mention of research into it being an immune system booster, cancer preventative and other such claims. Did I also mention it tastes delicious?

Snip the berries from the green stalks into a large pan (do you like the way I've just bullied you into making it?). Don't worry too much about the tiny stalks, well I don't worry about them anyway. I then use a potato masher to push the berries down and pour in just enough water to cover the fruit. Simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the resulting dark purple mixture through a sieve into a measuring jug. For each pint add 450grams (1lb) of white sugar and the juice of one lemon. Simmer again for another 20 minutes and leave covered to cool for 15 minutes or so. Pour the syrup into sterilised bottles. It's too late to mention it now but whatever wooden spoon you've used will now remain a lovely deep crimson colour. I hope you didn't spill any on your clothes.

That's the basic recipe. You can also add to the initial simmering an inch of ginger root, a dash of mixed spice, a cardamom pod, whatever you fancy.

Enjoy your syrup like a fruit cordial diluted with water, on ice cream, in hot water like a non alcoholic mulled wine or in a hot port like a very alchoholic mulled port.

Elderflower and Strawberry Wine

Some of the wines that were brewed in spring are bottled already, and yes I know it's best to leave them for at least six months before drinking, but sometimes rules are worth breaking! My favourite wine of 2009 is currently our elderflower and strawberry wine, it's very fruity, has a wonderful summer perfume and is so cute with a hint of pink thanks to the strawberries. A chilled glass of this is my favourite way to cleanse the palate or enjoy a quiet half hour in the sun on the doorstep. That sort of weather is rapidly coming to a close though but I'm looking forward to some other wines I started in the summer and will make perfect winter wines. Honey and ginger mead will be warming on cosy winter nights in front of the fire and I can't wait to try the wild damson wine at Christmas.

Making wine at home is growing in popularity and you can read how to get started with lots of recipies I've tried for country wines in my little ebooklet, see the Paypal store on the top right column. Slainte (cheers).

Elderflower Pancakes

Quick get out to the hedgerows and gather the last of the elderflowers, they are already beginning to fade. Whatever you do don't let the summer pass without harnessing some of this exceptional resource. The elderflower is such a fantastic bonus to the smallholder or anybody with access to the plant. It's so versatile in it's use; we've made a mountain of elderflower cordial and also a small batch of precious elderflower champagne. Another favourite of mine and one use I've not seen described on other blogs is elderflower pancakes. If you wish to delight your children, impress your other half and treat yourself all at once why not give it a go? The secret to anything made with elderflowers is to pick them on a hot sunny day (if at all possible!). Identify the elder with the help of a knowledgeable friend and/or an excellent identification book, be sure the area has not been treated or sprayed.

Make a simple pancake batter, for example Mrs Beeton uses 1 egg, 250ml milk, one 15ml spoon caster sugar and100g plain flour to serve four. For those dairy or wheat free it works well with soya or corn flour substitutes too. Beat the milk and egg into the flour and sugar. Pour some batter onto a hot buttered pan and sprinkle roughly half an elderflower head into the cooking pancake, snipping or hand stripping the flowerletts off the green stalks. Flip it and cook the other side. Serve hot with honey and lemon juice. Enjoy.

If you've missed the flowers don't worry, soon the elderberries will be ready for jam and wine! In the meantime, for more excellent foraging recipes try Cooking Weeds by Vivien Weise.

Country Wine, Chateaux Sallygardens

Wine making is something I've wanted to try for years and now that we grow the majority of our own food at home one of the biggest expenses on our tiny food bill is alcohol. The timing for having a go at this craft is perfect. It will reduce our expenses, utilise locally grown wild plants and cut down on all those air miles and energy that go into producing commercial wine. Of course, I'll still enjoy the odd bottle of Cabernet-Shiraz, St Emilion or Chateauxneuf Du Pape! The question is will our home brewed wine taste nice enough to replace our weekly bottle of bought red wine or will friends throw their eyes to heaven as we produce our dreaded liquid offering at dinner parties.  Time will tell.

I ordered a few glass demijohns, yeast and yeast nutrient  from The Homebrew Centre in Co Clare, who deliver nationwide and provide good advice if you seek it. Our wine won't be made from grapes, well at least not until the grape vines in the polytunnel are a few years old. I'm a believer in utilising what we find in our home environment and in this case we've decided to harvest a variety of seasonal flowers and berries from the surrounding fields to make our wines. There's a whole range of possible plant parts you can use to give flavour and colour to wine; dandelion, gorse, rose and elder flowers, blackberry and elderberry, even nettles, rose hips or birch tree sap can all be tried. During the summer there's usually at least one thing mother nature has on offer that you can pop into a brew. You can even try leaving out packet yeast, in the hope that wild yeasts will be there to do the business instead.

Our first attempt is a joint family effort. Dan and the children all picked a bucket full of dandelion blossom one sunny afternoon. A demijohn holds a gallon of liquid (4.5 litres) and you need to collect the same volume in blossom (berry or leaf). Place the blossom in a large pot and pour in a gallon of boiled water. Push the contents down into the water with a wooden spoon so nothing is floating dry on top. Leave the mixture to cool down to the temperature recommended on your particular packet of yeast (different strains of yeast flourish at different temperatures). Scoop out the flowers, squeezing them to release all the fluid. Enjoy the sweet aroma as you do this.

Stir in a 1.8 kilos of organic sugar, the juice of 4 lemons and a spoon of yeast nutrient. Stir well and then sprinkle the yeast on top of the liquid. After fifteen minutes stir the yeast down into the mixture. Pour the mixture through a sieve on a funnel and into the sterilised demijohn. Seal it with an air filter. As the yeast consumes the sugar and coverts it to alcohol, gas bubbles of carbon dioxide will exit through the water in the air filter. Once the yeast has stopped (a few months, depending on weather temperature) siphon off the mixture into wine bottles, leaving any sediment behind in the demijohn. Label the bottles, wait a few months or a year if you can bear it ... then drink at leisure.

I shall let you know how we rate our wine in a few months time.

Eating Weeds - Nettle Soup

Nature provides a wide range of free 'weeds' that are bursting with vitamins and minerals. The nutrient levels found in weeds are often far in excess of  home grown herbs and salads.  Don't let this time of year pass by without indulging in the delights of nettle soup and harnessing its nutritional potential.  As the tender new spring shoots rise above the soil it's the perfect time to harvest this plant. As spring advances the leaves become tough and once flowers appear the nettles have passed their peak in terms of nutrients. Spinach has an iron content of 4.1mg/100g and magnesium at 51 compared to  nettles with iron at 7.8  and Mag at 71.  In terms of the healing effects of nettle recipes they are said to be a great tonic during menstruation or the menopause. In Ireland the plant was also added to bedding to treat rheumatism, although I wouldn't advise trying this!

Our children were enthralled by what seemed to them as the totally mad notion of eating nettles and couldn't wait to taste the final product.

I came across a lovely little recipe for nettle soup in a book called 'Cooking Weeds: Vegetarian Recipes' by Vivien Weise which I adapted slightly. Choose plants in areas that you know without doubt have not been sprayed with chemicals or contaminated by animals. Take care not to get stung!

First collect 100grams of nettle leaves by snipping with a scissors and letting the leaves fall into a paper bag. Rinse the leaves several times in fresh water. Chop two onions finely and fry them in olive oil for eight minutes in a soup pot, stirring occasionally, until golden. Add one clove of crushed garlic, 500g of diced potato (I leave skins on) and one litre of water. Bring to the boil for fifteen minutes, then add the nettle leaves and boil for another fifteen minutes. Add 200ml of cream, milk or soya milk and leave to cool slightly before using a hand blender. Add salt to taste and prepare to be amazed (by the taste, not the photo!).

Serve garnished with grated carrot, beetroot, cheese or a dollop of creme fraise. It's delicious and you can literally taste the goodness, chi, prana, or whatever you want to call it.

Hunting Hazelnuts

This time last year, by chance, we happened across a stretch of hazel trees heavy with nuts and decided that each year we'd try and make an annual family trip to that particularly fruitful spot. We found plenty on the ground and just a few on the trees. When we got home the brown nuts that we collected from the ground were the best, with huge nuts inside when they were cracked open. Of the green nuts from the ground, these were mostly empty or mouldy. I think they'd fallen from the tree before they had ripened enough. And the last nut category ... those picked off the tree ... definitely just not ripe enough and mainly empty! From our basket full of bounty we were left with a small bowl full of nuts. They are delicious straight from the shell, or  even better, pop them on a very hot dry pan for three minutes. Set the timer so you don't forget the pan!

Beautiful Borage

This time of year the herb garden is bountiful. The foliage and flowers are bursting with colour and flavour, enticing the gardener to graze. Personally, I can't pass the herb garden without at least one daily munching on the feathery leaves of fennel, dill and coriander, and a mouthful of nasturtium or borage flowers. Herbs are a boost to the soul, a gift from natures pharmacy, all beautifully packaged and perfectly presented. Herbal remedies are one of my passions, in particular those available from the plants that grow wild in the Irish countryside. They have so much to offer, and the treatments, if used carefully, are so much more gentle on the system ... a pleasure to work with. Oh, and of course, they are free! Attending a course, and/or purchasing an excellent book are essential steps before embarking on a herbal voyage of discovery. Several herbs that grow on our shores are lethal, so nibbling on various unknowns is a mugs game. Even overdoing it on Borage can have serious consequences on the liver. This is the book on my kitchen shelf.

Borage is in full bloom outside our kitchen door. I didn't plant it this year, it has self seaded from last years flowers, so a very welcome surprise in the flower bed. The stems are covered in little bristley hairs which can be quite painful, but give the plant a beautiful fluffy appearance. The angelic little blue star flowers bow their humble heads, turning from blue to pink as they fade. The flowers themselves are delicious, beautiful in salads, or adorning the edge of a plate and bursting with borage oil.

Bring the beauty of these little flowers to your iced summer drinks (homemade Elderflower cordial for example). Put one flower head in each ice cube section, and fill with cooled boiled water (for a clear ice cube), place in the freezer overnight. Here I've used a mixture of borage and golden feverfew blossoms.

Exquisite.

Catching Eels

Two years ago we purchased an eel basket with every intention of putting it good use. This weekend we finally got around to using it. We had a guest staying and we all traipsed down to the lake shore at dusk to plant the basket, hoping to dine on eels for breakfast. It was set amongst some submerged stones, where we were told it was traditionally a very productive spot.

In the morning we gathered together a knife and a pair of dry gloves, and set off in the early dew, with hungry tummies and keen fisher folk!

The anticipation was mighty as Dan retrieved the basket, weaved from willow, and brought it to shore. He opened the lid and we all tentatively peered inside, half yearning for an eel breakfast, half ready to 'eek' at the sight of  black squirming eels, and all the frolics involved with holding it, never mind dispatching, gutting and cooking it!

And so, was breakfast to be freshly cooked eel fried in butter ... or porridge ... the latter I'm afraid! Half disappointed, half relieved, we put the basket back in another spot for another 24 hours.

One of our neighbours told us how eels were a popular source of food when he was a boy. They would be caught in that special spot he told us about. The standard procedure to kill them in those days was as follows ... once caught, you would take hold of one by the tail and throw it up into the air as high as possible,  and while the eel began its decent one would have to be sure to say out loud 'In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost', otherwise the eel would not die. The landing place of the eel must also be soft ground, such as grass. If these instructions were followed the eel would be dispatched, but if the wording was missed out, or the eel fell on hard ground, it would surely remain alive. We have yet to test this procedure, but when we do, I'll be sure to take lots of photographs!

Hazel Nut Hunt

The hazel trees are full of bounty this time of year. As the blackberries begin to succumb to chilly nights, its great fun to go hazel nut hunting with the children. The shells are easy for little ones to crack with a nutcracker, and they are delicious roasted on a hot pan.

Blackberry Picking

A little earlier this year my children have taken to the hedges and bird droppings turn purple! As for my kids their faces, fingers, teeth and t-shirts are stained purple, and as for the colour of their bodily functions, we won’t go there.

I've given up worrying about getting out berry stains, I just put them in purple t-shirts ... problem solved!