The blossoms

Except a mess, there is also an elder tree in my garden. Also in the small corridor behind the house there are quite a few elder trees. I have picked elder blossoms to make lemonade in spring (end May/start of June here).

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients
- about 25 nice and smelling inflorescences from elder (they flower half May/early June in the Netherlands)
- per liter water ½ kg sugar
- lemon, in pieces
- Jars, pan, mesh, clean towel, clean bottles (best cleaned with boiling water, so they’re sterile, but mind your fingers)

Preparation
Fill two big glass jars or a big pan with the elder flowers. Add water until they’re under water. Push a few pieces of lemon in, so the drink will keep it’s yellow color, but not too much so you keep the flower taste. Put the filled up jars or pan in a warm spot for a day (for instance in the sun).

Hang a mesh or a colander in a big pan and put a clean towel in. Pour the flowermix into the pan via the towel. Add the sugar and heat the elderwater while stirring until it cooks.

Add the lemonade in clean bottles and close them off.

When you drink the lemonade, add 1/5 lemonade to 4/5 water.

Perhaps next time I will try to use sugar syrup instead of sugar, which will make it more like syruppy lemonade too. I think the lemonade is quite ‘thin’ in a way yet.

The berries

This summer is the first time (finally!) I started on elder berries. There were enough bunches left in the garden and the pathway behind, with which I made a liqueur. It still has to wait for a few weeks before it’s done, so I’m not sure how good it is going to be! I have not done the fermenting process but just added berry juice to gin.

The recipe, which I found on internet, from the Dutch sugar company Van Gilse.

Ingredients

1 kg elder berries

0.8 l gin

0.5 kg sugar candy

3 spoons lemon juice

Pans, mesh or colander, clean towel, clean bottles

Making sugar syrup

Add 2.25 dl water to 0.5 kg sugar candy and heat it slowly while stirring. Once it boils, add the lemon juice. Let it boil on a  small fire for 10 minutes. Then take the syrup off the fire and let it cool down a bit. Optionally poor it over into bottles to store.

Making elder berry juice

Pick bunches of ripe elderberries. Wash them. Take off the stalks and take out the green and red berries (they are slightly poisonous). Heat up the rest with 2 dl water until it boils, and then put the fire low, make sure it doesn’t boil anymore.

Let it cool down a bit, and then sieve the juice out into another pan via a towel in a mesh or colander. Press out the last juice from the towel.

Making elder berry gin

Measure the amount of juice. Add to 1 dl juice 1 dl gin and 0.5 dl sugar syrup.

Pour it into bottles. Keep them in store for at least 6 weeks before drinking.

You will have about 2 l of elder berry gin.

The garden in early spring:

What happened after I came back from holidays…

And a toad lives here with family!

Hahaha it looks like a religion. Still I like it (o:.

See 8:12 min

The result: municipality is going to make a real park! With 700 trees and shrubs.

And I hope the local inhabitants can keep their little vegetable patches…

S

Every year, during Ascension Day, farms in Land van Wijk en Wouden open their doors to a large public to show what they can offer.

Anyone who likes can come to the Polderdag and pay €3,- to enjoy a day and a set cycle route out in the country. Children can come for free.

Three cycle routes are made. If you’re not well known to the area, this is a great opportunity to become more familiar with both the beautiful roads you can take and with the places that you can visit and where you can buy some nice products.

There’s loads of activities for kids, like playing with the animals…

and searching for life in the water…

There’s music..

I myself found a great place for camping!

And…of course..it’s the best time of the year to be out in the country…

See you next year?

http://www.parasitosurbanos.com