Fresh Lemonade

 

Our lemons are falling faster than we can deal with them.  We've given away bags and bags of them.  Time for drastic action.

I juiced dozens and dozens of the darn things and shall do another lot tomorrow.   This first lot of juice has been made into lemonade concentrate.

        I boiled 

- 1 big mug of water 

and 

- 1 big mug of sugar

till the sugar dissolved.  Added

-  one big mug of lemon juice.  

When it cooled I put it all into glass jars and into the fridge.

To make lemonade fill a glass with 1/3 of the concentrate and fill up with ice and water.

If you don't like it sweet, add more juice and less sugar.

The rest of the juice goes into ice cube trays or into small plastic bottles and into the freezer.  There they'll join the 3 or 4 bottles that are there from 2 years ago.  We hardly think of the frozen juice because we always have fresh outside in the garden.

Red Wine Liqueur

This a really easy liqueur using a bottle of red wine, sweet, dry  and even of questionable quality.

It uses red wine, sugar and the leaves of the rose pelargonia.

The leaves have a lemony flavour

In a wide mouth jar or bottle add the sugar to the wine and stir till dissolved.  I added a small piece of cinnamon as well

Push a large handful of pelargonia leaves into the wine.  Seal.  Leave for a couple of weeks, seive and serve.

1 1/2 litres of red wine

300 grams sugar*

40 (a handful will do) pelargonia leaves

The amount of sugar depends on taste.  I read recipes with anything from 700 grams to 400 grams.  I decided on less-is-better and used 300 grams.  I don't want a syrup.  After tasting this I think 250 grams of sugar would have been more like it.

The leaves are very hard to keep down so I scrunched up some waxed paper and placed it on top of the wine to keep the leaves under the liquid.  I don't want to end up with musty, mouldy leaves.  After 2 weeks it already tastes wonderful.

Serve in small glasses with lots of ice or even with some bubbly club soda water.

'Baileys'

Homemade 'Baileys'

or maybe the proper title should be

Homemade Whisky (or whiskey) Cream

one tin of condensed milk

1 cup of cream

2 cups of whisky - taste it, you may like more

1 spoon instant coffee granules

3 spoons some sort of cocoa or drinking chocolate

Blend

The recipe says that high speed blenders may make the mix curdle.  Mine didn't curdle but our little mixer is a slow old thing.  I was thinking of using a stick blender on the next batch.   They're great for mayo, it never separates this way.  

It keeps in the fridge for up to 2 months.  Didn't last that long in our fridge, or out of it!  

I've just found a recipe for this liqueur made with vodka.  My visitors brought us loads of vodka and it did cross my mimd to use some this way but we all agreed, then, that it needed that bite and flavour that whisky has.  However, having run out of whisky and with a can of condensed milk in the cupboard and 2 bottles of vodka in the bar I just might give it a try!

Brandy wouldn't be too bad either.

I've seen mint flavoured Baileys.  There is no mint essence available  here so I'd have to make my own sort of mint flavouring  with mint leaves   That's one twist I might try.

Someone brought a bottle of whisky for K's name day and there's always a tin of condensed milk on hand.  I can see another bottle of whisky liqueur coming up.  I'll have to wait till he opens it though before I pinch a little.  It's black label, slightly better than the usual 'Johnny'.

.  

Fresh lemonade

Homemade lemonade made with lemons fresh from the garden, or the grocery store, is so easy.  Just squeeze your lemons, make a simple syrup with sugar and water and you're ready to make a cool summery lemonade.

This year we have a super- abundance of lemons, on our own trees, and so do neighbours and sundry cousins all of whom are giving us bags of bounty which, this year, we don't need.  They get left on the doorstep or at the gate, no way we can refuse.  At the moment I'm squeezing lemon after lemon of those given to us as they seem to be going soft and rotting very quickly.  Ours are still on the tree and there they will remain till I have dealt with the 'foreign' fruit.

Amaryllis flower under the lemon tree

Today I'm juicing and making fresh lemonade syrup which will be put into 1/2 litre bottles and frozen so we can drink lemonade all through the summer.. and probably next summer.  Homemade and fresh (-ly unfrozen), the perfect drink to offer a hot summer visitor.

I will also freeze a few bottles of plain juice.

These lemons have loads of juice, unlike the year my neice K was visiting from Australia.  She tried to make a lemon meringue pie but didn't manage to get even a drop out of the dozen lemons she 'squeezed'.  Fortunately she's an Australian (with kiwi roots) and just took it in her stride and made us a delicious peach pie.  Peaches are luscious whatever the year    

Recipe 

For a half litre bottle of lemon cordial squeeze a mug and a half of lemon juice.
Boil together a mug of sugar and a mug of water.  They don't really need to boil much, just enough for the sugar to melt.  When the syrup is cold, add the mug and a half of lemon juice.  Give it a good stir and bottle.  It should keep in the fridge for about three weeks.  

To make into lemonade, pour a third of a glass of cordial and top up with cold water and ice and a leaf or two of mint.  

If it is too sweet or too tart for your liking you can add more sugar to the next batch or more lemon juice.

I don't boil the syrup once I add the lemon juice.  I hope this way I preserve  more of the vitamin C.  I don't strain the juice either.  I like the bits of lemon flesh drifting around in the glass.  Seems more authentic.

I have also seen recipes using honey or stevia.


To make it even more refreshing you could add some lemon peel to the syrup or even a piece of fresh ginger.  Here some also add a few leaves of  abororizo.

See the recipe for red wine liqueur flavoured with this flower under the label 'greek drinks'

Abororizo - pink pelagonia I think is the english translation.  The leaves of the pelagonia have a slight lemony taste and are often used here in liqueurs and sweets

Two bottles of juice ready for the freezer and half a bottle of cordial.  You can make the syrupy cordial and freeze that as well if you want lemonade all through the year

Geranium Liqueur

Pelargonium graveolins

This is a type of geranium but unlike the common geranium which in my mind plain stinks, this has a delicate lemony scent. Some call it a rose scented herb.   Another name for it is rose geranium.  In Greece it is called abaroriza.

It grows like mad all during the heat of summer and even in the depths of winter is luscious and green. The snow this winter did it no harm.  Mine was grown from a small cutting put straight into the soil.

The liqueur is very easy to make and has red wine as a base. I first tasted it after I bought a small bottle of homemade liqueur at a school bazaar.  I immediately asked for the recipe from the mama on the stall. 

Imagine drinking a small glass of this rose scented liqueur after a meal of kalamari, fries and tzatziki at a taverna beside the sea on a greek island (Olga's taverna, for those who know). This post is for Niki who is hunched down trying to get out of the photo.  I hope she found the rose geranium in New Zealand.  

I couldn't give her a cutting because NZ Customs and Immigration would have had the sniffer dogs onto her as she returned home.  You cannot take into NZ any foods, plants, plant products, animal products or anything which might harm the flora and fauna of our isolated island nation. Australia is the same.  They appear quite fierce in fact as you nervously enter their country, walking through with your suitcases. You get severely scrutinised, all over.  Don't take a risk.  Even crumbs and a stray sesame seed go in the bins provided, before you reach the official check point.

My pelargonia plant.  The tall grandson cut it back severely a month ago and it is growing all over the place again.

Recipe -

1 1/2 litres red wine*

400 grams sugar

40 leaves from the rose pelargonium with or without the flowers

a sliver of a stick of cinnamon (you don't want the cinnamon to overpower the geranium scent)

Wash the leaves.   Put all the ingredients in a large glass jar that can be sealed, shake well and leave for a month in a sunny place**.  For the first week shake the jar daily till the sugar dissolves.  At the end of the month strain, bottle and drink.  

Others say that white resinated wine should be used though I'm sure the pine resin would outshine the lemony pelargonium leaves and cannot imagine the taste.  If you want a harder liqueur then use vodka or raki.

The ruby tones of a good red wine and the lemony sweetness of the pelargonium are a perfect combination.  Try it that way first.

*some say the wine should be semi sweet, some say dry.  Just use whatever you can get

**others say keep in a dark place.  Take your pick

And for Elaine.  A bottle of this might ease the pain.

Perastika sou.