Reply To: The Irish Topic

[Jenny]

Fabulous sylphs, yes we could see some of them here today too, through the sun and showers, well downpours actually.

Autumn always brings out the preserving bug, harvesting crops, bringing them in for the winter.   Now I’ve no extra mouths to feed it’s a bit different, but I was inspired to harvest the elderberries off two trees that grew unasked and this year had a lovely crop.   So I collected about 3 kilos and had a fun and messy time yesterday ‘processing’ them.  First stipping them off their little stalks with the tines of a fork.   That took an hour!   Then a boil up for about 30 minutes.  I saw one recipe that suggested adding root ginger, cinnamon and cloves, then of course adding sugar, though the recipe suggested honey.   I’m very pleasantly surprised with the flavour.  Most of it is now bottled into Kilner jars, with the remainder put into small containers that will be frozen.  I didn’t bother straining out the fruit, kept it as a runny type of jam, though a jelly would have been great if I’d not been in a hurry.

I’ve mentioned this unusual bread before, not very charmingly called ‘Porridge Bread’, such a simple and tasty bread, thrown together in about 5 minutes.    The usual ingredients are:
1 x 500 ml carton of organic yoghurt.  1000 mls organic pinhead oatmeal or, as I use from Lidl, ‘Organic wafer Oats’.   An extra 3 or 4 tablespoonsful of milk and one egg. 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda and half a teaspoonful of salt.    That’s the basic recipe.  Seeds and nuts can be added, they are a good addition.   Mix the wet ingredients plus soda and salt together, stir in the oats mixing well. Put into a greased loaf tin or a tin lined with baking parchment.  Bake at 180° for 45 -55 minutes.

Of course, we never stick to the recipe do we Sunflower, I substituted my other healthy option, home made milk keffir for the yoghurt

  

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

I was delighted the way it turned out and my guest M was very impressed.  Perhaps I was a bit heavy-handed with the butter in the photo