I’m still here…
For various reasons the garden just isn’t happening this year, as in “I mow the lawn but that’s about it”. It’s fine; gardens are forgiving places, and while there might be a lot of weeds all over the place it’s nothing irreparable.
But summer is truly here. There are days when I retreat to the shade because it gets too hot outside – I’ve clearly lost the heat-resistance I built up in Texas if a Danish June can make me feel like I’m melting.
The sun is making the smell of the elderflowers drift through the garden, and last week I went out and collected a small basket of flowers.
I have never made elderflower cordial before, but the internet told me it was quite simple, so I got rid of as much of the stems as I could be bothered to, boiled up a thin syrup of sugar and water and poured it over the flowers – and then you just leave it in a covered container somewhere cool for 3-4 days.
The smell is amazing when you’re handling 50-something umbels of elderflowers – and when you pour hot liquid over them the smell just explodes! That alone would be a good enough reason to do it.
Last night I filtered the liquid through a cloth in a sieve, leaving the wet flowers to drain for a few hours, and then I poured it into small bottles and capped them. But I’d like to store it until winter, so just to make sure it has a “shelf-life” of up to a year I pasteurised the bottles before putting them away.
It’s the same process as when my family makes apple juice, only on a tiny scale – my pasteurising tub is not an old copper with a live fire underneath but a large builder’s bucket where I can use my sous-vide apparatus to give the bottles 20 minutes at 80C / 175F. That kills everything inside so the contents won’t spoil.
There is something very satisfying about bottling up the smell and taste of summer, storing it up for a cold, dark winter when you need a bit of liquid sunshine. And it really does taste of summer mornings in the garden… The first batch was only a couple of litres, but I’ll definitely make a second, larger batch, and maybe reduce some of it to a thick syrup to use on ice cream, pancakes and whatever else needs a little boost!
I need to get some labels, though, so I can write what’s in each bottle – otherwise it could probably get quite confusing!
This sounds delicious! Thank goodness for shade. It is scorching here at the moment as well. Spring was very short!
Elderflower became a bit of a fad a few years ago and suddenly it was in everything – which became a bit sickening. But as a cordial with lots of ice on a hot day? It’s perfect. And those wee 25cl bottles look pretty damned cute with their red caps! (As a single-person household I try to make all sorts of preserves in small units so it doesn’t go off before I finish a jar of jam or whatever it is.)
And there are always shady spots in my garden – but I’ve caved and bought a “sail” to give shade on my patio. I’ve had two skin-cancer scares within the last year, so that gives an extra incentive to stay out of the sun… (Nothing to worry about; doctors have slashed away at my skin and found nothing nefarious.)
Definitely slather on the sunscreen! Yeah it can be tricky cooking for one, i was never good at it.
I’m a firm believer in SPF 50… Anything less is just a false sense of security!
And I bought a huge freezer – that really helps when cooking for one! I often buy “family-sized” packs of meat, and then re-pack it into portion-sized bags. Same when I do a large stew or similar – small bags, into the freezer. A roast chicken? Carve it up, small bags, into the freezer… When I had to cook for my mother and her boyfriend during their recent visit it was always a matter of taking three bags out of the freezer, since each bag contains just one portion of meat or a cooked meal… (They helped me tear down a lean-to building in two days, so there wasn’t really time for much cooking from scratch.)
Excellent system! Something I should have done way back home. With teenagers in the house, leftovers are nonexistent for now. Plus we have our Danish exchange student, who isn’t a fan of danish food! I was disappointed with that. 😄
It’s all about making it easy.
Traditional Danish food seems to be becoming more popular – there is an increasing number of cookery books on “grandmother-cooking” coming out these years, but a lot of people still think it’s a bit bland and boring. Though really, a pickled herring in a curry dressing served on rye bread with a topping of raw onion and capers? That’s all kinds of weird, but you definitely can’t accuse it of being bland. 😉