Welcome
This is an attempt to document my efforts to grow and eat locally around Melbourne, Derbyshire. My family own a nine acre smallholding on which we grow fruit and vegetables and keep bees, and chickens, but that won't feed us alone, so the idea is to get to know our local produce and to see how easy/hard it is to follow a diet that is local to within 30 miles. The fun part is also trying some new (easy) recipes that use home-grown and local produce. Feel free to comment, send in recipes, and share your experiences of buying and eating locally.
Blackcurrant cordial
This is so easy to make and you can use the almost unlimited supply of blackcurrants you get if you grow your own. Blackcurrants are easy to propagate from cuttings - just stick a cutting in the ground in Autumn and you'll have a new plant next year. Just make sure the cutting is taken below a node (the bit where the leaves grow from). Kids love it and it's great for getting vitamin C into them. My kids used to call blackcurrant "Ribena balls". Today I used frozen blackcurrants from last season, which need using up before the next lot arrives. But that way you can make it all year round as it only lasts a couple of months after turned into cordial (I have kept it longer however with no problems).
This is my method.
- 450g blackcurrants
- 250g caster sugar
- water
- Whole lemon
De-stalk and wash
the blackcurrants. No need to top and tail.
Put blackcurrants in large
pan, cover with water then simmer very quickly until juice comes out. Try and keep boiling to minimum to preserve vitamins. Add skin and juice of lemon during the
simmering. Then strain - either through a fine sieve or a muslim, depending on whether you are fastidious about the odd bit. Then add 12 oz
sugar per pint of juice - or 1.2kg sugar to 2 litres of juice. You may need to then reheat slightly to dissolve sugar - but again keep this to a minimum. Bottle up to
brim and then seal bottles with wax.
Keeps for six weeks in fridge or cool place.
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