Sunday 7 July 2013

Attack of the Earth Mother!

So, it's lovely, warm and sunny, the garden is growing like a jungle and I discovered an elderflower tree on a walk with Miss Peach Pudding.  Having had a moment of earth-motherliness and back-to-nature-thriftiness earlier in the week (more in a minute) I filled my bag with elderflower heads.  The tree was on no-one's property, by the way.  I do try to keep to the Country Code!

I already had the lemons and sugar so free Elderflower Cordial was the order of the day.  Having perused a number of recipes on the tinterweb it appeared to be a free for all regarding the number of flower heads to lemons ratio so I did my usual - made it up as I went along.  I couldn't get citric acid anywhere so braved it without.  I believe it's only for clarity and longevity but I was quite happy with cloudy and anyway, it's not fated to last long at our house!

Ta-daaaa....!
Delish with chilled white wine, but certainly good enough with icy water on a hot day.

Cooking our home-grown beetroot I was reminded of my natural dyeing escapades last year.  I saved the beetroot water, strained it and added alum to half and ferrous oxide to the other.  I then dyed some white craft cotton.  They both ended up a similar soft grey-green, not the prettiest shade.  To compensate I finished the craft cotton off in cranberry tea (pinkish) and rooibos tea (orange-ish).  They're not stunning shades but do have a certain natural pleasant look.
 Once dried to paler shades I had a play with them while watching a very exciting Men's Semi-finals Day at Wimbledon and drinking freshly-brewed coffee.  
Ah, this is the life!



3 comments:

  1. Wow, how clever, am very impressed, and the doilies look fab!

    Love Claire xxx

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  2. I love making homemade preserves and am sitting here drinking my elderflower cordial catching up on Blogs.
    Gillx

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  3. Very creative, Clever old you. I bet the elderflower cordial was lovely too. I have only had it the once at an open garden I once visited but it was lovely and refreshing.

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