Agreeing to disagree and home made rosehip syrup.

My friend Marian really made me chuckle this morning. We don't always agree on things but are perfectly ok to agree to disagree.  This morning was one of those times as we were out walking.  We agreed to disagree and then she quipped.. 'it's not your fault if your opinion is wrong'.  I fell about laughing at her cheek.  :-)  

It's been a bit of a foraging week and I made hedgerow syrup the other day.  It's a bit of a faff but the end result is gorgeous. There's a mixture of the elderberries that I cooked the day before, brambles and two varieties of rosehips in this recipe. I didn't add ginger or cinnamon but plenty of honey went in. Some of the hips are the size of tomatoes but don't let that fool you it's a tedious job.  I cut each one in half and scraped all the seeds out with a teaspoon. The smaller ones I just topped and tailed.

Rosehips and blackberries (brambles)

Look at all those seeds

Don't add the seeds to your garden compost bin as it wont get hot enough to kill them. You may end up with wild roses popping up everywhere. I put mine in the councils green waste bin.

Once I had finished deseeding them all and discarded a few over ripe ones I gave them a good rinse.Then I put them into a big pan and covered them with about an inch and a half of water.  Brought them to the boil then let them simmer for an hour. Occasionally I gave them all a good mix and a mash with my potato masher. After an hour I added the cooked elderberries that were left from the previous day and brought it back up to heat before turning the heat off and letting it cool considerably. You don't want to lose all the benefits of honey by adding it too soon. 

I poured it through a sieve lined with several layers of cheesecloth and then poured it into a wide mouthed jar before adding the honey.  Last year I made the mistake of pouring it into wine bottles and it set like very firm jelly. It was a blimmin nightmare trying to scrape it out of the bottles.  This time I doubled the amount of water and it's made a lovely syrup.