Time to make POSH SQUASH!
Gardens and supermarkets are awash with summer fruit...
THE season of glut has arrived. Soft fruits are cheap and plentiful in the shops, and gardeners like me have more produce than we know what to do with.
My pantry shelves are heaving with homemade jams and there’s no room in the freezer — so what else can I make with it all?
Posh squash, that’s what. Homemade drinks that preserve the fresh taste of summer and are a world away from the chemically sweetened concentrates that line the supermarket shelves.
Farmers’ markets and high-end food halls are now awash with drinks made from intriguing ingredients that only need diluting. But I begrudge forking out for expensive versions of drinks I can make at home, especially when I’ve got some of the ingredients growing for free outside my kitchen window.
STRAWBERRY AND LAVENDER CORDIAL
I RESCUE two punnets of strawberries — overripe and bruised and the last from my allotment — that my 11-year-old, Bridie, is about to fling into the bin, sending her into the garden to pick some lavender. Fruit that appears to be past its best is fine because you want it for the flavour, not looks.
covering almost half a kilo of fruit with half a litre of water, I chuck in the lavender flowers and bring to the boil.
Away from the heat, Bridie crushes the lot with a potato masher, before adding 400g of sugar and the juice of a lemon.
The mixture cools over the next three hours with an occasional stir, before we remove the lavender and strain through a jelly bag overnight. Lakeland sells a tripod jelly strainer for £17.99 that makes this job easy; or you can tie your pulp in a square of muslin and hang it from a door handle to drip into a pan.
Don’t be tempted to squeeze the pulp to speed things up — you’ll end up with a cloudy cordial instead of the red, jewel-like liquid I’m left with. PREPARATION: Half an hour of chopping, mashing, stirring and leave overnight. COST: I grew the strawberries and lavender, so 35p for half a bag of granulated sugar. DIFFICULTY: Easy, but patience is required. TASTE: Incredible — sweet with a gentle floral note. I can’t fault it. PERFECT WITH: Gin, soda water and ice — delicious. Bridie enjoyed it over crushed ice for an additive-free fruit slushie. 10/10
BLACKCURRANT AND LIQUORICE
BLACKCURRANTS can be expensive, but you can buy them cheaply from pick-your-own farms and farm shops.
I add 600ml of water to a kilo of fruit and bring it to the boil, along with some dried star anise, then simmer for 45 minutes, crushing the fruit with a potato masher to release the juice and all the amazing flavours. The house smells like a sweet factory.
Once it’s cooled, I let it strain overnight (using the same method as for the strawberry cordial) before returning the resulting liquid (just under a litre) to a clean pan, adding 700g of granulated sugar and heating it gently until the sugar dissolves.
The deep, gleaming colour looks incredible once bottled.
PREPARATION: 45 minutes then leave overnight, plus five minutes the following day. COST: A kilo of berries cost £3.99, plus 49p for the sugar and pennies for the star anise. DIFFICULTY: Easy but takes a fair bit of time. TASTE: A disaster according to Bridie, who didn’t take to the aniseed, but I liked it. PERFECT WITH: Hot water for a warming drink on a rainy day. I wish I had made just a plain blackcurrant cordial, which would be more versatile. 5/10
RHUBARB AND ROSEMARY
My FRIEND has such a glut of rhubarb at the moment that she leaves buckets full of stalks outside her house with a sign urging passers-by to take some for free.
I come home with five stems and grab some rosemary sprigs from my own garden.
I chop up 400g of fruit and a lemon before adding both to a pan with the rosemary, 300g of sugar and 300ml of water. I stew the lot for 20 minutes, leave it to cool and then strain overnight. The translucent pink liquid I’m left with is just delightful. PREPARATION: 20 minutes of
attention then leave overnight.
COST: rhubarb and herbs were free, the lemon cost 35p plus 21p for sugar. DIFFICULTY: Super easy.
TASTE: Wow. Several layers of flavour — from sharp to sweet and then woody. This is how summer should taste.
PERFECT WITH: Soda water and ice. Bridie and I agreed it tasted like fancy pink lemonade. 10/10
BEETROOT AND BLACK PEPPER
BEETROOT might be a vegetable but it’s sweet enough to bake with, so I think it will make an interesting cordial.
I chop up a bunch of small roots and add 200g of sugar, 200ml of water and a handful of peppercorns. I cook it all and then strain in the same way as the strawberry and rhubarb mixtures. PREPARATION: Twenty minutes then leave overnight.
COST: The beetroot cost £1.40 from my local farm shop plus pennies for the peppercorns from my pantry and 14p for the sugar.
DIFFICULTY: Peeling and chopping the beetroot was the trickiest part.
TASTE: Earthy. I wish I’d added lemon for a bit of zing, but I doubt even that would have saved this concoction. A waste of time and money.
PERFECT WITH: nothing. I’ll stick to adding beetroot to cakes in the future. 0/10
GARDEN MINT
I MAKE a simple syrup with equal measures of sugar and water, which I heat in a pan before adding a couple of handfuls of mint leaves from the garden and leave to steep for a couple of hours.
I strain it all through a sieve straight into a couple of glass bottles.
PREPARATION: I spent longer picking the mint leaves than anything else — this was almost effortless. COST: 21 p for 300 g of sugar. DIFFICULTY: Making this couldn’t have been easier. TASTE: Fresh and cool. PERFECT WITH: Everything. Bridie had hers with a squeeze of lime topped up with soda water. I had the same but added white rum for an effortless mojito. It was also delicious poured over vanilla ice cream. 10/10
APPLE, GINGER AND CHILLI
GINGER cordial takes me back to my childhood, while the sweetness of the apple will make it palatable for my daughter. I keep things simple and use a juicer to extract the juice from six apples, a large ginger root and two large, red and de-seeded chillies. This produces threequarters of a litre of liquid, to which I add 400g of sugar and heat gently until the sugar dissolves completely. PREPARATION: Ten minutes.
COST: The ginger cost a pound, I paid £2 for the apples and 55p for the chillies, plus 28p for the sugar. DIFFICULTY: using the juicer feels like I’m cheating — super easy.
TASTE: Too sweet but with a pleasant, punchy aftertaste. I should have used just a couple of apples and much less sugar. The flavour combination works — in the right proportions.
PERFECT WITH: Hot water and whisky as a hot toddy for my husband who was suffering with a summer cold. 4/10