Category Archives: Recipes

Elderflower and Lemon Curd – Rapture!

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Frogend_dweller

With the hedgerows billowing under the weight of scented, frothy white elderflowers (Sambucus nigra), it’s obviously time to get cracking on a few brews of elderflower champagne and/or elderflower cordial. However, in my ongoing search for foraged food ideas I’d … Continue reading →

Posted in Flowers, Foraging, Recipes | Tagged Elderflower and lemon curd, Elderflowers, Foraging, Hedgerows, Preserves, Recipes, Sambucus nigra | 7 Comments

Loving the Lilac – Saving the Scent

Posted on May 10, 2020 by Frogend_dweller

I do love Lilac. There is something both old-fashioned and comforting about it. It brings to mind family teatimes enjoyed outside, beneath jolly bunting or inside blanket wigwams, with cake, scones and cream and pints of tea or lemonade. It’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Flowers, Food, Recipes, Trees | Tagged Common lilac, edible flowers, Gardening, Lilac honey, Lilac syrup, Photography, Preserves, scented flowers, Syringa vulgaris | 7 Comments

Foraged blossom, stone fruit syrup and sticky date cake

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Frogend_dweller

I love this time of year, when the hedgerows around about become billowing white clouds of stone fruit blossom: Damsons, gages, bullace, wild plums and sloes. It is very transient, but beautiful. A while ago I wrote a post sharing … Continue reading →

Posted in Food, Foraging, Recipes | Tagged #StayAtHome, cake, damsons, Foraging, Fruit growing, Gardening, Greengages, Sticky date cake recipe, Wild plum blossom syrup | 8 Comments

Mushy medlars make marvellous marmalade

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Frogend_dweller

A dreadful title I know, but once there were three words beginning with the letter ‘m’, I just couldn’t stop myself. In fact I’ve made jelly, not marmalade, from some medlars that I gathered last month. The reason that I … Continue reading →

Posted in fruit, Recipes, Trees | Tagged cooking, Gardening, Horticulture, jelly, Medlars, Mespilus germanica, Photography, Recipes | 6 Comments

Delicacies from Delicious Dogwood

Posted on October 31, 2017 by Frogend_dweller

A couple of years ago I discovered that you could actually eat the fruits of the dogwood tree Cornus mas, aka. the Cornelian Cherry. So much fruit set that year that in August the bushes became shiny red beacons in … Continue reading →

Posted in Drinks, Food, Recipes, Trees | Tagged cooking, Cornelian Cherries, Cornus mas, Gardening, Grow you own, Moraba, Preserves, Sharbat | 21 Comments

2017 … Coming, ready or not!

Posted on January 1, 2017 by Frogend_dweller

Happy New Year! 2017 has begun. Are you ready to start new resolutions, projects and adventures? I am hoping that this year is filled with peace and accord and many wonderful moments, successes and kindnesses. Over the last week or … Continue reading →

Posted in Food, Recipes, The home garden | Tagged birds, canapés, Fun, Gardening, goldfinches, New Year resolutions, olives, Photography | 15 Comments

Blackberrying … followed by ice cream

Posted on October 16, 2016 by Frogend_dweller

Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries, Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly, A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries Big as the ball … Continue reading →

Posted in fruit, Nature, Recipes | Tagged blackberry ice cream, Blackberrying, brambles, countryside, Foraging, no-churn ice cream, Sylvia Plath | 12 Comments

Tomatillos: A successful seed-swap experiment

Posted on August 27, 2016 by Frogend_dweller

“Tomatillos are like a gift. Tart green fruit … wrapped in a crinkly husk. Peel the wrapping away and you’re left with a world of possibility.” – http://www.thekitchn.com Back at the end of January, at a local allotment seed-swap event, … Continue reading →

Posted in Food, Plants, Recipes, The home garden, Vegetables | Tagged Gardening, mexican food, salsa verde, Tomatillos | 10 Comments

Elderflower Fizz … made with Black Lace

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Frogend_dweller

There is a fantastic pair of elderflower ‘Black Lace’ bushes, albeit ~ 12 foot tall, growing on either side of the entrance to the Soame greenhouse in the walled garden at Wimpole. I pass them all of the time, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Drinks, Flowers, Food, Recipes, Trees | Tagged countryside, Elderflower, Gardening, Lemonade, nature, sambucus nigra 'Black Lace' | 13 Comments

Bad Foraging

Posted on May 13, 2016 by Frogend_dweller

A couple of weeks ago we met up with some old friends for lunch and since we were converging from a number of locations we ended up driving cross-country to get there. En-route I noticed a couple of large patches … Continue reading →

Posted in Food, Nature, Plants, Recipes | Tagged countryside, Foraging, Gardening, ransoms, Wild garlic | 21 Comments