Homemade Rosehip syrup

As you will already have seen from my previous post I've gotten into foraging in a big way, finding lots of new recipes to try for each new food I forage. Well today I'm making something I have never tried before and I don't really have a clue what it will taste like either.

I have been telling friends at work about my recent foraging and jam making activities, one of the women who lives in a beautiful rural area called Entwistle was telling me about how she used to pick fruits and make jam, I promised to bring in some of the elderberry and crap apple jam that I made and the next week she came in with a hedgerow jam for me - I'd inspired her to go out and forage then make some jam! The jam contained all the fruits that are available, blackberries, rowan berries, haws, crab apples, rosehips and elderberries it was delicious. 

She said that she would like to try making blackberry and sloe recipe but she did not know where to find some. I said I would pick her some and she said would pick me some rosehips from her garden they were rosa rugosa hips that unlike the rosehips you generally see in hedgerows it was much bigger and fatter, apparently they are a better flavour. 

This week I am suffering from a cold, chesty cough and a sore throat- the first of the autumn season and as it hasn't even been very cold yet it doesn't bode well! Apparently rosehip syrup is well known for its medicinal properties. It's high in vitamins A, C and D as well as being full of antioxidants.

I found this recipe on another blog...

 http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/kateys-best-rosehip-syrup-recipe-121/

It seemed very straight forward so I decided to give it ago! 

Wash the rosehips (and if my sisters are reading this - yes they are the things we used to break open and put in the seeds down each other's backs as itching powder when we were little!!!)

Mince them in the food processor 

Add to a pan of boiling water, bring to boil then take off heat to infuse for 15 mins. 

Strain through a muslin cloth and put the pulp back into the pan with more water, boil then leave for 15mins and strain again.

Do you like how I have hung the muslin cloth up to strain? 

I had no idea what I was going to use for hanging it up but Matthew put a hook discreetly under the cupboard and it works wonderfully. 

When the juice has drained out, put back into the pan add the sugar and boil for 5 mins.

Decant into sterilised bottles....which is were I came unstuck ... I had some Kilner bottles with the swing top lid but I hadn't sterilised bottles before, only jars, so I just did it in the same way as the jars by washing it then putting it in a low oven, I'm not sure what I did or if those bottles are meant to be sterilised like that.. it must have been too high because the plastic on the lid melted ....oops!

                Sterilising bottles...fail 😟

I've not got anymore bottles so I had to use these ones but put wine bottle stoppers in!

The finished product..and actually tastes lovely and if it helps my cold to get better then that will be great!

Thanks for reading, 

Abigail xxx

Food for free!

In August purchased a collins gem book called 'food for free'  a guide to foraging. I have always liked the idea of foraging for food but worry about poisoning myself I decided to start with something easy like berries, when we were younger I remember going picking winberries (also known as Bilberries ) from around Entwistle reservoir and enjoying it so much, they start to ripen from late July. So when we went for a walk late August we didn't expect to find many and there weren't very many around Entwistle but we managed to pick lots from Rivington pike. All in all we got about 500g and bright purple hands but it was good fun.

So what to make with them?? I froze half and made a cake from my hummingbird bakery book, Blueberry and sour cream loaf but substituting wimberries for the blueberries and very nice it was. I still have the other batch of wimberries in my freezer which I think I'll eventually make into a small wimberry pie because my mum is desperate for me to make it because it reminds her of her childhood.

Just after we had got Max obviously we were walking more and I kept seeing more and more blackberries ripening so we took a bag out one weekend when we took Max for a walk at the nearby Longsight park. We managed to pick 800g which I washed in salt water to kill any bugs that may have been in them then rinsed them through and froze them until last week when I was off for half term, I found this recipe on the BBC good food website http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/11750/angelas-flexible-jam-recipe it needed 1kg blackberries for the recipe so I added apples to make it up, this meant I had to cook the fruit for longer but it really does add to the flavour. I had made Jam before but this time I treated myself to a jam thermometer which I then went on to reading wrong and thinking that I had let it boil for too long because it went past 105 but I looked at Fahrenheit instead of Centigrade so I took it off the heat. Luckily it must have been at the correct temperature because it set really well. I called it 'Abigail and Mum's blackberry and apple jam.' because we picked the blackberries together and then we made the jam together too.

I made five jars of it all together and it tastes lovely on toast...

..or in donut muffins...yum!

I think we did well for our first attempts of foraging!