Elderflower Cordial...Solstice magical drink!

Making Elderflower Cordial

So happy it's this time of year again! And this years blooms are spectacular! Make sure you harvest on a dry day when the pollen is full and complete, rainy days it gets washed away. Make sure they are young, fresh blooms with no bad bits. If you follow this to the letter it will last all year long as long as you store it somewhere cool and dry. Elderflower is fantastic medicinally, I was drinking it all winter to keep away colds and flus' and all those common winter nasties, it's all good for the immune system!

Ingredients:

900g/2lb caster sugar

3.5g citric acid

1 lemon

½ litre boiling water

10 elderflower heads

Method:

In a large container/bowl, add the sugar and cover in boiling water, stirring until dissolved. Add citric acid. Grate rind of lemon and add into bowl. Slice the lemon and add to mixture. Add elderflower heads. Cover with lid or tea towel and leave to infuse for 12 hours. Strain through muslin, bottle and store for one month before serving. Dilute in water or soda water with a bit of fresh mint. 

Rhubarb Champagne...spring tanginess!!

Rhubarb Chamapagne

Great to make with new, young rhubarb shoots. it's an unusual tasting one, not to everyone's taste, and can taste very different from batch to batch. Be careful how you store this, I've had glass bottles explode over me in bed with a cascade of glass and champagne, it gets really fizzy! So plastic is better. 

Ingredients:

1 kg rhubarb
3 cups sugar
6 teaspoons white vinegar
4 litres water
2 lemons

Method:  Cut rhubarb into small pieces; add to large bowl/container.  Slice lemon in strips with rind on it.  Add lemon slices and rest of ingredients to the rhubarb.  Cover and leave for 48 hours stirring occasionally.  Strain 3 times.  Bottle and label.  Leave for two weeks to mature. 

Wild Garlic Pesto from Ballyseedy Woods

I first made wild garlic pesto last year after a visit to Tralee, Co.Kerry and we had made our regular trip to Ballyseedy Woods for a walk and to harvest some wild garlic from the what seems like miles and miles of it that covers the woodland floor at that time of year! We harvested a large bag of leaves. And took them home to get pesto making!

How I make wild garlic pesto:
I don't use quantities with this one, I totally improvised. Firstly I blended up the leaves (after washing and chopping them) with some organic olive oil. For the cheese I used a combination of blue cheese and Parmesan cheese, chopped small and grated. For the nuts I used a combination of pine nuts and cashews (chopped or blended fairly fine), again it was whatever I had in the cupboard, I didn't add any extra garlic as I decided the wild garlic would be strong enough on its own. Blend this all together - at this stage you may choose not to use the mechanical blender, it depends on how smooth you want your pesto to be, I just mixed it in by hand and left it as chunky pesto.Bottle it up, being sure to pour in a layer of oil on top - this is your seal of freshness - as long as there is a layer of oil the pesto will last ages.

It tasted delicious, especially on toasted cheese! And it is still going strong  in April 2013, a year later!

Winter Cough Syrup - the magic of Elecampane

Elecampane is a little known medicinal herb plant, that belongs to the Aster or Daisy family, it's latin name is Inula helenium. In France and Switzerland it is used in the making of Absinthe! An interesting fact I found out is that Susan O'Shea, a research student at Cork Institute of technology, has shown that extracts from the herb kill methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as well as a broad spectrum of other bacteria.

It's a herbacious perennial, so it dies back every winter. And it is in the winter that you dig up some of the root for medicinal purposes. From Plants for a Future': A gently warming and tonic herb, it is especially effective in treating coughs, bronchitis and many other complaints of the chest as well as disorders of the digestive system. It cleanses toxins from the body, stimulating the immune and digestive systems and treating bacterial and fungal infections. The root is antiseptic, astringent, bitter, cholagogue, diaphoretic, diuretic, mildly expectorant, gently stimulant, stomachic, tonic.'

It's main use is as an expectorant, so to bring up and get rid of phlegm! So when you are chesty of have a bad throat or cough, elecampane syrup is just what you need!

How I make Elecampane Syrup:
When the plant had died back in winter, dig up part of the root, making sure to leave some for growing next year. Scrub the root clean, and slice it into small pieces. put it on a large pot of water, and bring to the boil, let it infuse at a medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Turn of the heat, leave to infuse for a further 10 minutes. Strain off the root using muslin and a strainer. Add sugar to taste (the more you add the longer it will last), heat gently until the sugar dissolves in, be careful not to over heat it again or the taste turns bitter. Bottle it, and keep in a very cool place or in the fridge.  Drink it by adding in some hot water and take as a hot drink, two to three times a day when phlemy/throaty. It turns this amazing green colour when you have infused it in the water. And I think it tastes delicious!