Picking berries

The other day I went fruit picking (again) with Scott. Scott's Nana Hazel, was kind enough to let us raid her supply of gooseberries and red currents from her garden. It feels so good being able to pick your own fruit, there is definitely something very caveman like about searching for your own food and then eating it!

We used the gooseberries to make a yummy crumble! And the red-currents we ate straight up, and I used the leftovers to make some other desserts look pretty by laying them over the top!

This is Ollie, Hazel's lovely doggy. He was 'helping' us pick the fruits, and actually had a nibble on a few of the red-currents!

The colour of the gooseberries was so rich compared to the pale green variety you get in the supermarket. They were already nice and sweet so didn't need as much sugar adding to them as the store bought kind do.

I made a gooseberry crumble, and then a few days later used the left over gooseberries with some frozen berries from Lidl and made another one! Crumble is definitely a food obsession at the moment, I just cant get enough of it!

Strawberry Jam

So a few days ago I said i'd post the recipe for strawberry jam that I used for the fruit we picked locally!

It's a really delicious jam and quite easy to make!

Recipe from BBC GOOD FOOD:

Ingredients:

1kg /2lb 3oz strawberries

1kg/2lb 3oz granulated sugar or caster sugar

½ lemon, juice only

Place the strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a heavy bottomed pan. I used the Cruset which worked really well! Simmer gently until all the sugar has dissolved, and then bring the jam to the boil testing every ten minutes or so to see if its set. Heres a tip: Place a saucer in the freezer an hour before you make the jam. Then when you think the jam is set place a teaspoon of the jam onto the cold saucer. Push the jam on the saucer with your finger. If the jam wrinkles you know it has set and is ready to put into jars. If not keep boiling and checking every 8 minutes or so. 

Once your jam is set, ladle it into sterilised jars and it should keep for up to a year!

(It will be too yummy to want to keep it for a year though!!)

We had ours smothered on toast for breakfast this week!

 With a trusty mug of builders tea of course!

Gooseberry and berry crumble

The gooseberries Scott and I picked from the pick your own field came in handy for crumble time! I've recently planted a gooseberry push that I bought from Lidl but that wont be ready until at least next year, so until then its back to the pick your own! :)

I decided to pair the gooseberries with some frozen berries as I love the vibrant pinks and purples from the berries, and the tartness of the gooseberries.

The great thing about frozen berries is that you can have them in your fridge for the times when you havn't got fresh fruit and you want to make a crumble, or when you have a fruit that you don't want to use on its own! They're also really good when blitzed in the food processor with yoghurt and honey to make a sort of instant ice cream.

Ingredients:

1 large handful gooseberries

2 handfuls froen berries. I find strawberries dont work as well so try to avid them if possible!

2 tablespoons sugar

knob butter

Crumble Topping:

150g flour

125g chilled butter

35g Demerara sugar

Put your gooseberries in a pan with the sugar and simmer until soft. Add the berries once the gooseberries are soft. Cook for another minute then pour the fruit into your crumble dish.

Rub the butter and flour together until they resemble fine bread crumbs. Add your sugar to the the flour/butter mixture. Sprinkle over the fruit, make sure you don't press it down as this will effect the texture. Cook on gas mark 6 for about 20 minutes or until the crumble is lightly brown and the fruit is bubbling at the edges.

This was by far the best crumble i've made. The best combination of tartness and sweet. We had ours with cornish ice cream but you can have it with whatever you like or even on its own.

Pick your own

Scott and I went Strawberry picking last week and collected and array of delicious British fruits. We picked red currents, Strawberries and gooseberries. All were extra yummy and we cant wait for the cherries to be in season to go again shortly!

 Here are the red currents. We only picked a few of these as I like to use them mainly for decorating other desserts, though Scott does like to eat handfuls of them. His Nana also grows them in her garden so I think they always remind him of her which is sweet! I love the colour, so vibrant and fresh!

 We gathered a lot of smaller strawberries for both eating on there own and to make jam from!

 There is something extra special about picking your own fruit, I think it would be great to encourage children who are not really  a fan of fruit to actually eat more as there really is a big novelty of seeing them grow, picking them and eating them. I thinks it's standard to say you eat more fruit than you put i  your basket... which justifies the price of picking your own! We used to have a massive field full of pick your own strawberries but sadly it no longer exists and we have to travel slightly further afield. If your local the pick your own nearest us is near on the Aberwheiler/Bodfari road. You can't miss the signs (a giant strawberry) and its a really fun afternoon out.

I will post a little about the jam we made later :)