Housekeeping and a recipe for marmalade

The good weather went. It's been raining fairly consistently for 3 days or so now and is forecast for another couple of days drizzle, showers and storms before clearing up a bit for the weekend.

So yesterday not a lot got done. I was too miserable even to attempt any of the many indoor tasks on my list and spent most of the day slumped in front of the computer playing Bejewelled on facebook. Not at all productive, so best forgotten.

Today, I tackled a task I've been avoiding for 15 months and went to the dump. It was almost too late. One more bag full and I wouldn't have been able to get into the car with the rubbish. The man looked at me rather hard, but really the stuff I was throwing away was genuine rubbish unlike the man next to me who seemed to be disposing of a lot of unbroken plastic gardening pots (I nearly asked him for them) or the man in a van who was throwing away whole unopened reels of some sort of tape. It was just there was an awful lot of it after a year's collection.

Then I went to the shops as a reward, but there was little enough there to inspire me. Stocked up on dull stuff like bog roll and washing up liquid but did treat myself to some apricots.

This afternoon I bottled the elderflower syrup. It tastes rather good.

I used small plastic pressure bottles that had held tonic because I wanted to freeze them and have usable quantities that wouldn't go off before they were finished. In the recipe I used from Anne's Food she says her father makes marmalade with the elderflower infused lemons. It's a lovely idea but she doesn't include the recipe. This is what I did:

Pick the lemon slices out from the flowers and weigh them. You'll have about 500g if your lemons are the same size as mine. Anne says her dad chops them with a hand blender but you'll need a mighty powerful one. If you like a minced marmalade put the slices through a mincer or food processor or chop by hand. If you're lazy, do nothing and have chunky marmalade.

Put the lemons, chopped or sliced into a big saucepan, I used the pan I'd infused the syrup in to save washing up, and squeeze the flowers over them to get the last drops of elderflower syrup out.

Add 300ml of water and bring to a simmer for a few minutes. Add 500g of white sugar (for the best colour). I was using up ends of bags and found some sugar with pectin added so I used that along with some ordinary granulated but all granulated is fine.

Stir to dissolve completely and then bring to a good boil. Keep the pan boiling fast until you get a set. The usual test is to put a little on a cold plate and see if it forms wrinkles when you push it gently with your finger. Because I had the pectin sugar this only took five minutes but if you don't have that it will be about 10 minutes.

Pot into clean hot jars and cover immediately. Makes about 3 x 400g jars full.

Handful of Hops

The first spring harvest, perhaps. Hops shoots have been gathered and used as a green vegetable for many generations although in the UK they have fallen from favour, perhaps as a result of the shrinking of the hop farms of Kent and I have never seen reference to them in France.

We don't have many hop plants but they are strong growers and very vigorous, it seems safe enough to take a handful of shoots for a spring snack.


Take just the top few cms of the shoot, longer shoots are tougher and you need to leave a node or two to shoot again or you'll have no hops in the autumn. Of course, if your bines are managed intensively you may prefer to limit the shoots to just one or two strong growing tips and sacrifice all the rest but our rather haphazard plants seem happiest with a tangle of new growth each year.


Cooking is simple, drop the hop shoots, tied for tidyness if you like, into a pan of simmering water. They take only a couple of minutes to cook like this and I served them with rather a lot of salt and pepper and a dab of vegan mayo as a summery nibble. They'd also be great chopped and added to rice at the end of cooking or used in a flan or tart in the manner of asparagus.

Cherry Jam

I used about a kilo of cherries, sour morellos, with a kilo of jam sugar (the sort with added pectin), about 300 to 500g of redcurrants.

Pit your cherries, this takes ages so round up some helpers and some extra cherry stoners. My kilo took about an hour on my own. Try to catch all the juice as you work. You won't succeed so make sure your apron covers all your clothing and protect precious work surfaces.

Put the stones and the redcurrants into a small pan and simmer gently until the currants have completely disintegrated. I was using frozen redcurrants from a couple of years ago so had my doubts about their pectin content, hence the pectin enhanced sugar, but if your redcurrants are fresh this should be sufficient to set the batch.

Then I think I made an error, I added half a pint (300 ml) of water. The cherries were so juicy that this seems unnecessary in hindsight. Anyway, strain your redcurrant juice into a very large pan and add the cherries, their juice and the sugar. If you were using sweet cherries you might consider adding the juice of a lemon at this point. I also cracked some cherry stones and added the kernels to the pot, about half a dozen are sufficient.

On a gentle heat stir until the sugar is completely dissolved and then allow to come to a full boil, stirring frequently. With the pectin sugar it was only necessary to boil the jam for 4 minutes before a setting point was reached, without it you will have to use your favourite method of judging when the jam is done. I usually put a little on a cold plate, wait a moment and then gently push the spot with my finger. If wrinkles form the jam is ready to pot. If you boil hard for much more than 15 minutes the flavour and texture will be damaged and you may end up with toffee.

Pot into clean warm jars. A typical jam maker's fault is demonstrated in my pots, all the fruit has floated to the surface. There are ways of avoiding this but I don't seem to be able to achieve them. It tastes good anyway. Yield would have been 4 x 340g sized jars but because of the extra water I had a small jar of cherry and redcurrant jelly left over!

This should keep well in a cool dark place if properly sealed, but will be better for refrigeration after opening.