TARRAGON & THYME

We walked Missy this evening and went and had a look at the crab apples. There are a few and I hope to go for these tomorrow. There are also cones, teasels and rosehips.  There was also a lovely surprise.  The golden load of sloes.  I have never seen so many together.  I aim to pick these as well as there is so much you can do with them and then pop them into the freezer.  That way round I can use some and then save some for a later batch of sloe gin or sloe and crab apple jelly or sloe and apple jelly, sloe whisky, apple and sloe sorbet, slider, (sloes in cider), sloe gin chocolate, sloe port, sloe vodka,  sloe gin jelly, sloe gin and chocoloate pudding, sloe chutney, and there are so many more combinations beside including a cranberry and sloe gin sauce.  So it looks as though I am taking my basket with me tomorrow to harvest some of the contents of the wild larder.  Always adds an element of surprise to the pantry especially on a c...

Well I managed to get out yesterday foraging in the hedgerows, predominantly I came back with two carrier bags of Elderberries and over four pounds of Rosehips - somebody had beat me to it with the blackberries, will have to source another site. We were out for well over an hour and a half.  OH walked the dog  - I did the foraging - I came back with purple stained hands and a purple splattered hoodie and that was using scissors to cut the elderberries.  The rosehips I picked by hand were nice and large  - I am hoping to get some more at the weekend. But needless to say I got scratched and had little cuts from the rosehip stems.  There are various ways of using the hips, either fresh, processed as below, left whole and dried, left whole and fresh.  For years I have known of the method of drying them whole, as this is what my Nan used to do to make Rosehip wine during the winter months when there was little else available to make wine from. (i.e put...