Tuesday 20 June 2023

Cooling summer drinks

Many years ago I was asked to submit an article on summer beverages to a magazine. This summer, in the intense heat, I’ve been making more cordials and tweaking some of the recipes, so I thought I would bring the article to my blog audience.

When I was a child, on one hot day each year, my mother would make real lemonade from sliced lemons marinated overnight in a sugar solution and chilled. Summer was the busiest time of the farming year, so we rarely went on holiday. Instead we were left to our own devices while our parents brought in the harvest and looked after livestock.

The lemonade tasted so different from our normal commercial blackcurrant cordial. We were never allowed fizzy drinks because my grandmother once worked for a grocer as a governess. The business made their own carbonated cordials and having seen the process, she disapproved of paying for carbon dioxide piped into flavoured sugar water.

Now we ae subjected to flavoured water with many, questionable additives, sometimes forgetting we have the knowledge and resources to make our own. Yes, they include sugar, but sugar is a natural preservative and you only ingest a very small amount with lots of water.

Last weekend, we helped with a fundraising weekend for a primary school in Mali. I provided a table full of herb and vegetable plants and a box of elderflower and ginger cordial. The cordial was offered as a taster and all the bottles sold.

Elderflower and ginger cordial

10-20 heads of fresh, creamy elderflowers

4 lemons

2 oranges

A large chunk of ginger root (approx. 1-1.5 inches/3.8cm)

2pints/1.2 litres water

2lbs/0.9kgs granulated sugar (or use 1kgsugar:1litre water)

Place the sugar in the water in a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring until all the sugar is dissolved. While the water is heating, place the elderflowers in a large bowl and cut the zest off the oranges and lemons and add to elderflowers. Cut the ends off the citrus fruit and discard, then slice and add to contents of bowl. Peel the ginger root and dice into small pieces before adding to the bowl.

Pour the boiling sugar syrup over the elderflowers and citrus fruits. Cover the bowl and place in a cool place for 24 hours. I put a plate on the top of the bowl to keep the citrus fruit submerged in the syrup. After 24 hours strain (eat the orange slices – they are amazing!). Strain twice more using either muslin or kitchen paper. Makes 4 pints of cordial. Pour into sterilized glass jars or plastic jars and freeze. Keep in the fridge and dilute to taste. It tastes good with fizzy water. Serve diluted in glass jugs with slices of lemon and a sprig of mint.

To extract the maximum from your flowers and fruit, pour boiling water over the discarded solids in a bowl to cover and place in the fridge until cold. Strain the contents and drink the now diluted cordial.

Below,  I have used my childhood memory of lemonade but perfected it by adding some of the sun-drenched herbs in my garden and hedgerows.

Rose and lemon balm cordial

5-6 strongly scented roses (I used a mixture of Apothecary’s Rose, William Shakespeare and Gertrude Jekyll)

20 lemon balm stems

4 flowering stems of self-heal

4 lemons

2 lbs of sugar

2 UK pints (20fl oz) of water

Remove the leaves from the lemon balm stems and the leaves and flower stalks from the self-heal and place in a large bowl. Chop into small pieces with scissors. Add all the rose petals and mix. Remove the ends of the lemon and cut into slices. Add these slices to the herbs. Measure the sugar and cold water and place in a saucepan on the heat. Bring to the boil stirring all the time with a long wooden spoon. Pour the sugar syrup carefully into the bowl. Cover with a suitably sized dinner plate so all the plant material is submerged under the syrup. Place the bowl in a cool larder or fridge overnight. You will see that the syrup has turned pink by the following morning. Remove the dinner plate and strain the syrup into a jug. Squeeze the plant material well to remove as much syrup as possible. If you want to maximise your syrup, return the squeezed plant matter to the bowl and cover with cold water. Mix well then strain again and drink. (This should provide your first taste of the cordial at a strength ready for imbibing.)

Pour your rose syrup either into sterilized glass bottles or clean plastic bottles and immediately freeze. The glass bottles should be sealed, labelled and dated and kept in the fridge once open. Dilute to taste with still or sparkling water.

One of my garden beds is overrun with Swiss mint. The flavour is too strong and metallic for mint sauce but it makes a wonderful mint vinegar and mint and lemon honey which can be combined for an oxymel. I thought I would experiment to see what a Swiss mint cordial would taste like. It was a great success!

Mint and lemon balm cordial

20-30 long stems of mint picked before flowering

10 stems of lemon balm

4 lemons

2lbs sugar

2 UK pints (20fl oz) of water

Remove leaves from mint and lemon balm, place in a large bowl and chop into small pieces with scissors. Remove the ends of the lemon and cut into slices. Add these slices to the herbs. Measure the sugar and cold water and place in a saucepan on the heat. Bring to the boil stirring all the time with a long wooden spoon. Pour the sugar syrup carefully into the bowl. Cover with a suitably sized dinner plate so all the plant material is submerged under the syrup. Place the bowl in a cool larder or fridge overnight. Remove the dinner plate and strain the syrup into a jug. Squeeze the plant material well to remove as much syrup as possible. If you want to maximise your syrup, return the squeezed plant matter to the bowl and cover with cold water. Mix well then strain again and drink. (This should provide your first taste of the cordial at a strength ready for imbibing.)

 

Pour your mint syrup either into sterilized glass bottles or clean plastic bottles and immediately freeze. The glass bottles should be sealed, labelled and dated and kept in the fridge once open. Dilute to taste with still or sparkling water.

Don't forget that mint oxymel (2tsps infused mint cider vinegar with 2tsps infused mint honey diluted with cold water in a glass or mug) has been a summer cooling drink since before the first Crusaders brought the recipe back to Europe. 

One of the strangest summer recipes I came across was for a 1947 cough/throat remedy made from roses and nettles served with milk. I was dubious fresh nettles could be found at the same time roses were blooming but if you keep your nettle patch well harvested, there will be young growth available when you pick your roses.

The syrup can also be made from dried nettles and rose petals if you need a fix in the dead of winter.

If you want to maximise the mineral content of your syrup, macerate the nettles in cold water overnight maybe adding red clover and/or sweet violet leaves or heartsease aerial parts. If you’re looking for a soothing cough remedy, then try adding marshmallow leaves to the maceration. If you want to enhance the nervine/spirit lifting effect of the roses, add Ashwaganda roots to the maceration. (Basically, the possibilities are endless!)

Nettle rose milkshake syrup

A large bowlful of young nettles/nettle tops

Other medicinal herbs suitable for cold maceration (see above)

Cold water

7 deeply scented red roses

2lbs sugar

Place the nettles in a bowl (and other herbs) and cover with cold water. Cover and leave overnight in a cool place. The next morning tip the entire contents of the bowl into a large saucepan. Cover and bring to the boil. Simmer for twenty minutes then strain the liquid into a jug, discard the herbal matter and wash the saucepan thoroughly. Measure the liquid, return it to the saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer uncovered on a low heat until the liquid measures 2 UK pints (20 fl.ozs). Add the sugar and all the rose petals. Bring back to the boil simmering and stirring for approximately 15 minutes until the sugar has dissolved and the rose petals have given up their colour to the syrup. Strain off the rose petals and pour the hot syrup into hot, sterilized bottles. Seal, label and date. Allow to cool. Add to a glass of cold milk an amount to give your desired level of sweetness. (The original recipe says 1 tsp per glass but I like 1 tblsp!) Store opened bottles of syrup in the fridge. Unopened bottles should be ok in the larder or a cool cupboard.

When you have a garden or open space full of herbs, there is nothing better than wandering around with your gathering basket and a pair of scissors in the cool of the evening collecting flowers from different plants to create a unique elixir.

Uplifting elixir

Rose petals

St Johns wort flowers

Borage flowers

Evening primrose flowers

Ox-eye daisy flowers

2 lavender flower heads

Self-heal flower stalks and leaves

Lemon balm leaves

Alpine strawberry leaves

Runny honey

Brandy

Strip all leaves from stems and place inside a jam jar. Chop leaves into small pieces with scissors. Add flowers to the jam jar. The amount of uncut leaves and flowers should loosely fill the jar. Carefully pour in runny honey until the jar is half full. Stop pouring several times and stir mixture with a chopstick to remove any air bubbles. Fill jar to the top with brandy, mixing everything together with a chopstick. Seal the jar, label and date. Leave in a cool, dark place for 4-6 weeks. Strain and use as required. Dosage is 1 dropperful at a time up to 4 times a day. (Not suitable for children under 12 but you could make a soothing cordial using the same plants maybe increasing the lemon balm, adding chamomile and omitting the roses and SJW)

So many herbs offer us a myriad of wonderful combinations to enhance our lives not only in summer but all year round.

Monday 16 January 2023

A New Year and New Apprentices

 At the last festival in September, my arm was twisted to re-start the Springfield Sanctuary Apprenticeship. Eight people applied and we had our first workshop in my kitchen last Saturday. As always, it was great fun and the participants learned about five different barks, then went out into the garden, tasted chickweed and bittercress and dug up two mullein florets to make their own tinctures for straightening spines.

The wonderful thing about herbwifery is its intense practicality. There are books to read and issues to discuss, but it is all about getting out, digging and making herbal preparations from whatever it is you have harvested.

Mullein florets are a perfect example. Their leaves are so soft and beautifully coloured. It’s no wonder they were used as toilet paper in ancient times. They also absorb a lot of moisture, so several tea towels were used to dry them off.

The roots were scrubbed and chopped before being divided into five parts so everyone could make a mixed root and leaf tincture. It will be interesting to see what happens because, ordinarily, the leaves precipitate too much mucilage when alcohol is added, but I suspect these will be fine because of the amount of water they held which will dilute the vodka to a suitable level.

I thought I would share one of the tasks I set new apprentices each month. In January, they are asked to walk around their local area looking for certain trees/bushes to map – hawthorn, elder, wild cherry and dog rose.

The aim of the exercise is to become aware of your surroundings. Even in the middle of a city, there will still be plants and trees growing on the roadside or in the pavement cracks. When I had to walk through central Sheffield on a regular basis, I found an elder tree growing out of a derelict building and would monitor its growth cycles for six years.

If you look hard enough there will be fragments of field hedges and the odd ditch where hazel catkins are starting to wave in the breeze.

Maybe some of you reading this blog might like to map your locality along with the apprentices. Take pictures of what you find and make sure you know where the useful plants and trees can be found.

I have put the dates for all the monthly workshops on the relevant page and if anyone would like to join us, you'd be most welcome.