A syrup of sweet sonsie, peelie-wallie flouers - Elderflower cordial - a good life lab experiment

The good life gardener, in action, best wellie forward,  knee deep in an elder..........

You may indeed think I've completely lost my marbles or I'm typing when tipsy. Neither of these are true right now, although I've been upto my wellies and armpits, often on my tippie toes, in elder bushes (sambucus niger) lately picking elderflowers, so I may be giddy or intoxicated from the pursuit of this task ! I've got all inspired by several folk to have a go at making Elderflower Cordial, whilst the season is over for most of you, the flowers are only just going over here, so I've been busy plucking flowers and making home made cordial or syrup to reduce our buying at home and to have a yummy stash of local home made cordial in the larder at home. And, me being me, means with the best of intentions, I often forget to do things when they are ripe/ready. But, not this year!

A sonsie plump elderflower head

And, why a 'sweet sonsie of peelie-wallie flouers' you may ask? Well, flopped out on the sofa, on a saturday night, as you do, I spied quite accidentally across the BeechGrove Garden on BBC TV, a local scottish gardening programme. I'm not great at sitting and watching TV, I think I have an attention problem, I have the attention span of a gnat and I'm also a figdet - these two qualities do not readily inspire couch potato behaviour. Anyhow, good old Jim McColl's first words contained some scots phrases I absolutely love, they roll of the tongue, I learnt many of them from my Grannie! Phrases you don't hear much now like 'peelie-wallie' {meaning pale, delicate, or often insipid} and 'sonsie' Jim was bestowing on their rather fine cabbages. I'd heard of 'sonsie' but didn't really know what it meant, I kind of knew the gist of it, but not the true meaning ' a sonsie cabbage, do I want one? Jim what on earth is that?' - being a fidget, out came Mr Google and the online scots dictionary told me the following:

sonsie ['sonse]

adj. Enjoying good fortune, fortunate, prosperous, attended by good luck. Engaging and friendly in appearance or manner, hearty, jolly. Of people: sound, sensible, shrewd. Of women: comely, attractive, good-looking. In respect of the figure: buxom, plump. Of things or personifications: fine handsome, impressive, pleasant, cheery, big, ample, roomy, capacious, substantial, abundant, characterised by plenty.

What a fine word that  is for a gardener to be learning! Therefore I thought I'd use it today, whilst I don't sound scottish in real life, I am scottish and I'm clearly scottish in my own head as I talk to myself in scots dialect quite alot. Funny that isn't it? Not the talking to myself bit, the talking to myself in dialect bit. And, I found out the dialect word for flower = flouer - nice to know!

Elderflower cordial, a brewing...............

Anyway I digress - back to the sweet sonsie syrup of the peelie-wallie flouers. Elderflower cordial, is, it has to be said, delish and easy to make. No special equipment needed, you can be all romantic and take fancy equipment if you like to make this but to be honest all you need is a bag, a pot, and/or a tub to steep (infuse) it all in and a teatowel/colander to strain it all in and a jug to decant the stuff into bottles after you're done. There you go it really is that simple, here in the goodlife lab, we try and find the laziest (um, I mean easiest) way to do things, with the least fuss and clobber required to make life simple, cost less and tasty. Well thats the remit anyway!

OK, cordial - recipe came from here at the Jammy Chicken thank you very much for the recipe, this blog has truely beautiful pictures, mine are at best comedic, as I can't possibly compare with the fine photography over there! And thank you to Wittgenstiens Watering can for putting me in the direction of the recipe!

Basically its 10 sonsie (plump and extravagent) peelie-wallie (beautifully pale, not insipid) elder flouerheads to each 2lb sugar, to 1 pint water, to a handful of lemon (in my case frozen sliced lemons unused at xmas and bagged up for a later use) and 35g of citric acid, which makes it nice and tart, although you can avoid this and use more lemon if you like. Its YOUR cordial, have a bash and see what you prefer, I experimented and I prefer it with the citric acid, but its your show. Basically, I ended up with a bag of sugar (minus a bit if I remember otherwise I put in 1kg) to a pint of water with random amounts of lemons added and roughly 35g citric acid. Lifes too short for measuring too precisely in my life. Enjoy experimenting, don't be stressed by getting everything perfect, lifes not! Lob sugar and water into pot, bring to boil, dissolve sugar then let it cool whilst you're off communing with nature. I popped in the frozen lemons when it was cooling to get that bit out of the way unpeeled, ungrated, just lobbed in. Purists can grate and peel, I, I'm afraid am more of a lobbing kind of cook. Zesters and graters cost money, whilst I own a grater I don't own a zester, so thats my excuse. Add citric acid once the mixture cooled down.

Anyway - if in full cordial making mode, I'd make the syrup before you go out and don your finest wellies and pick flowers when in season - ours are only just going over here in the frozen northern isles and we don't always get berries here (due to the wind) so to be honest picking flowers is a safer bet than hanging out for berries in my mind. I've been making larger batches - that way the process is more rewarding, but its upto you, I stick to the bag of sugar to 10 flowers, to a pint of water. And when picking the flowers you want right 'sonsie' ones, big plump lush flowerheads - they make great cordial, but I'm not a purest, the peedie skinny ones get grabbed too. I'd say only that not to take all the flowers from one bush, remember the bees and butterflies love this plant, and the birds will love the berries later, so pick carefully and don't gorge yourself from only one plant. Be respectful of other users, be them birdies or beasties. And talking of beasties, give the flowers a shake to make sure you're not taking any home, but don't wash them (the flowers not the beasties), you'll lose that gorgeous flavour...........



An elderflower head, is a mass of flowers, in a corymb..........

Individual teeny tiny elder flowers, aren't they very pretty and cute? I think they look like flower confetti.

Back to your own good life lab for the messy bit. Well its not exactly messy, but you have to, um, deflower, the flowers. That got me giggling as to be fair it sounds a bit rude, but its not. Basically the only way I can describe it is you clasp the flower head in your hand and gently rub off the flowers - an elderflower is a flat head is a branched cluster of many flowers in what they call a corymb, just alot of flowers in a tight cluster, great for picking them. Each actual flower is tiny! I'm glad they grow in corymb's - imagine picking them one by one - bleurgh! Anyway, the easiest way found to work is to almost think of crumbling the flowers, gently like when you add a stock cube to soup or crumble a bit of cheese. Using your two forefingers and thumbs gently tease the flowers straight into either a bowl or a tub or the syrup.

I started using a bowl with a tea-towel over it, but found it a bit messy to move, so I've settled on a large old plastic tub which has a lid, (a recycled ice-cream tub would do) it keeps the flies out and if I want to put it in the fridge to do its magic, its easier to move. But, its your cordial, do it with what you've got to hand and however suits you. And, thats it, once you're sweet sonsie peelie-wallie flouers are in the syrup, go off, enjoy your life for 1-2, maybe even 3 days if you like and then strain it through a seive, or a colander or through a jelly bag - whatever you've got to hand. I have found using a clean tea-towel does fine, if its placed over a colander. You can leave it to strain or squish it through yourself - depends how you're feeling.  The cordial can be ready after 24 hours, but leaving it longer also works - I've left it upto a week the strained it, not much improvement in flavour, but I was going away for a few days on another adventure and wanted to do it when I came home.

Once strained, put into a container, bottle, jug, in the fridge, I'm told it can last for a year, probably not in this house, Mr Flowers has taken a real liking to the flowery cordail. We've got it hidden, um I mean, stored in well washed out recycled milk containers, old tomato sauce glass bottles, old bubble bath bottles, wine bottles, jars and old pop bottles. Whilst this cordial is very gorgeous, its not a drama queen and won't object to being in a recycled bottle, it probably quite enjoys its 'vintage, recycled, shabby chic' new home. A label is probably a good idea, I've used a garden label pen to write on the containers, but if you forget, then just sniff it, you'll know what you've got. It's really that simple. The recipe worked for raspberries too, I'd try out more things and see what you like.

Hooray - we've got luscious local home made cordial stored for the loons (young men), quines (young ladies) and the bairns (kids), for the cost of a bag of sugar (80p) we get two pints of cordial, from a bit of a foray into the shrubbery and a bit of deflowering of sweet sonsie peelie-wallie flouers.  I'm trying to grow/eat more local produce and reduce both my food miles and my spending. Whilst there are a number of very lovely elderflower cordials on the market, they are expensive and YOUR own will be far superior and local and cheaper in money and carbon. 

I'd never considered growing elder before or even really an advantage to having it in my garden, the foliage smells a bit and I've never thought of it as an interesting shrub, shame on me, now I'll think again. What a brilliant little productive plant it really is. I've never really been foraging much, but I'll be looking out for other local things to be harvesting for my own storecupboard. I've even used a few of the flowers from the ornamental elder 'Black lace' which was flowering at work...........worked nicely too.

Another great good life lab experiment!

And, I've heard that meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) can also be used (although I heard mixed results about its flavour), which I have all down the track to the hoose so I'll give that a go too................found a recipe here looked pretty good.

Filipendula ulmaria, not a Harry Potter spell as my other half thinks I make up most latin plant names, its actually common meadowsweet!

Filipendula ulmaria, meadowsweet on the track to the hoose, fery leaving stromness taking Mr Flowers back to the deep south of the central belt.

If you think you're not sure what I'm blethering (talking) about, I've put a link to the scots words I've got up there and you can amuse yourself by putting in 'english' words and seeing what the scots are!

And, as the inspirational Beechgrove lot would say - Cheerio!

Ps one of the Beechgrove team was the guy who interviewed me, gave me my first break and was my main tutor when I studied flowers for the first time, I've so much to thank him for, his direction was indeed life changing. However, when  his booming voice now coming out of the TV it still gets me sitting up straight and paying attention, in case he asks me a question. Whilst I know that can't happen, you just never know with that canny loon! Mr Anderson, thank you and I'm absolutely paying attention!

The goodlife lab experiment no 2 - Ken'ing yer ingins

OK - a good-lifey-lab experiment time. I know like me you've been losing sleep (!) over the idea of what might happen if you didn't throw away the end of the spring onion you've just chopped. Believe me I've lost days of sleep over it. You know the bit I mean the end bit, which looks like you want to eat it, but if you cook it, oddly it resembles an octopus or something very wierd and everyone leaves them on the side of their plate. I wanted to ken (know) my ingins (onions) - (my grannie was from Dundee and thats how they say the word onion there! Very wierd, I've always thought but it reminds me of her.), so I tried to see what I could do with the end bit. 

Anyway in the good-life-lab - where other curiosities have been pondered - like can I freeze eggs? I decided to have a bash and see what would happen. Purely for the science you understand, nothing to do with those darker nights in the winter when you feel like you're going slightly insane. Ahem, its purely for the science, I tell you. On the understanding that other things will grow if you give them a bit of water like carrot tops - I decided to see if a spring onion would regrow from a stub at the end. If it worked you get free onions and in the winter months (Jan/Feb) they might provide a bit of windowsill grub before even the chives had popped thier heads up and oodles of months before any onion type beast was ready to plant outside.

Time for the experiment, if you chop off the top of a spring onion and plop it into a small 0.5 cm filled glass of water - the answer you've all been waiting for is that they grow! And you can have a cheeky early onion crop from those wierd little octopus things. Fantastic. Quick too, been a week or so since I did these.  And, whilst you're shaking your head thinking, is she for real - unfortunately she is, and she doesn't like throwing anything out - including wierd octopus end onion dangly bits. I didn't study all this stuff to only do it at work, you know - in real life I'm this obsessed about plants and of course eating.

Of course this could have been a one off and a complete fluke (by chance), so I tried it with a few onions and being part scientist/part frugal person/part eco-tree hugger - I also wanted to know how little an end would grow, if it indeed did grow. The answer was even 1-1.5 cm of an end bit would grow and 6 cm would grow too -  all were equally successful.

There you go - grow your own scraps - and tide yourself over until the real ones are up. I've of course not kept these hostage anymore in the manner of lab rats - they are now in a pot on the windowsill and I'm chopping bits off until I can eat stuff outside or they disapprove and look unhappy.

Where on earth do I come up with this stuff? Part of the idea was due to the fact most onions are perennial or biennial. Therefore I gave it a go. You're probably sorry you read now about alien onion growing of end bits - but I found it a bit interesting thinking about it all. I don't like waste, this seemed like something fun to try.

Now I ken my ingens right enough.

Goodlifey science: The great frozen egg 'eggsperiment'



In real life I love science and riddles, especially the 'how can I do that stuff' - Like poor old Tom Goode I'm a great one for an experiment - especially the goodlifey type. I was asked the other day what to do with alot of eggs - well you can always bake with them, make quiches, omelletes, fruit curds or of course my favourite - boiled eggs, scrambled eggs etc.  Like many folk I've taken to having hen in the garden - and from what I've heard keeping them at home by familes is on the up - a good blog about hen keeping on the up at home here by an inspiring blogger who's living a very frugal life.

But, when thinking about our 'good life' adventure - what I wanted to find out was if I've a glut of eggs (like I had after I came back from holiday - 60 eggs!!!) and what can I do to have my own eggs over the months when maybe the hens are not laying and quite frankly I don't want to spend £2.40 on a dozen eggs! Time for a bit of action in the good-life lab to figure it out.............

I've been told the hens need 14hr of daylight to lay - and when the nights draw in they might well either slow down or tail off. The hens will get a lovely rest but I would like to have eggs over those months. Anyway - being the adventureous type - I tried to freeze a whole egg - this worked but the shell cracked and I've read if it does then bacteria can get into the egg and thats not great. Plan B I think! Now I know I can cook eggs and freeze them I've done it for my McMuffiny things - cooked egg works brilliantly - but what about raw eggs - it got me thinking, back to the lab again................

I'd also been told of separating the eggs and freezing the white and the yoke seperately - and frankly I'm too lazy, life is just too short in my opinion to be doing all that faffing. I'd rather be in the garden - egg glut or not - lifes too short to do complicated things with our food to freeze - I take my hat off to those of you who do have the energy to do it - I'd rather put my feet up in the campervan with a good book or at the beach!

Anyways - I'd read you could freeze them when they've been beaten up - done that before and its worked a treat. I wanted the eggs saved in individual portions as often we have yorkshire puddings which will need one or two eggs depending on the amount you're making - and we do like baking cakes etc - so I had a think and came up with a silicone baking tray as the most useful thing I could freeze my eggs in - its flexible enough to wrestle the eggs out of when they are frozen, to store them and can be cleaned thoroughly in a dishwasher/hot water to prevent germs.   The goodlifey lab - looks very like a normal family kitchen but don't be fooled - alot of experiments are done in the handy secret lab.

A silicone baking tray, half a dozen eggs to freeze

Anyway I had a go - here is the tray and the eggs ready for the grand goodlifey science egg freezing 'eggsperiment' (tee hee). Now normally I'd use a plastic bag in a cup - or someting from the cupboards to do this - but I want a bit of kit which will work for this without much effort and I'll use alot - so I had a voucher to use up and bought a lovely silicone bun tray with 6 holes as I normally have 6 eggs a day from the hens.

Beaten egg - individual portion

I beat them up in a wee bowl and then popped them into their individual freezing compartments - worked a treat - I found out to my horror when I nearly slopped the mixture on the lab floor that to put them into the freezer I'd need a tray underneath them to take them through carefully. I'm learning as I go really. Anyway that worked well and meant I could have eggs beaten in one egg quantities for cakes, scrambled eggs and for yorkshire puddings which are a staple in this house over the winter. I emptied the frozen eggs from the silicone mould into a zip bag which is in the freezer - keeps them together and nice and airtight - and uses alot less space - I've a bag for whole eggs one for beaten eggs. Now to try and tackle the next bit - can I freeze an egg whole to have poached and fried eggs over the winter time..............................

Whole egg  - into the baking tray

Well - this bit I was more nervous of - but I have to say it worked a treat - I defrosted an egg in a little bowl overnight and managed a lovely fried egg from my previously frozen egg - BRILLIANT worked a treat! But, when I did try and mix a whole frozen egg up after it had been frozen - not too great, ok that meant the yoke consistency was too viscous to mix well - I think I'll save them both ways - mixed and unmixed in the freezer to give me more choice.

We keep a tray in the bottom of the oven to put our shells in as we use our eggs, we bake the eggshells after we've used them - they break down easier

Now after all that effort of laying the eggs etc - the hens need alot of taking care of to keep them in tip top shape - I mean imagine producing an egg a day - hard work or what!? We recycle the egg shells back to the hens - (you can put them on your garden too), but I'd heard that you have to be careful doing this as if they aren't broken down enough the hens might start to peck at freshly laid eggs - and we didn't want that. Baking the shells makes them more brittle and they nicely mix down in a blender or a hand pestle and mortar (which we use to save energy) - the crushed shells go back into the bag of mixed grain they have and they don't really see it. Now baking them does smell a bit funny - not too bad in my opinion - but some folk don't like it - we only use the oven for eggs when we've something else cooking - I wouldn't waste the energy just to bake eggs. We do feed them a supplement for grit etc too - the shells are good at giving them minerals back - but they do need proper food too.

There you are - eggs in the freezer ready for action - hens getting their shells recycled - and lovely lovely eggs for us - hopefully all year round! Next time you're in your own lab (it might look like your kitchen!) - try a bit of eggsperimenting - sorry I meant - experimenting.