Summer House Party

We hosted a repeat of the post-Christmas get-together this weekend, with the same friends travelling up on Friday, and staying until today. Sadly, Katherine was struck down by a stomach bug, and couldn't make it, but Robert joined us this time (he couldn't make it in January). As before, much food was consumed and eaten, and we also enjoyed games of croquet and boules outside (the glorious weather held), and Twaddle and Chinese Chequers inside, as well as a walk on Saturday.

Everyone had left by early afternoon, and we've made the most of the last bit of holiday. A bit of tidying in the kitchen garden yielded a few trays of currants, and a kilo of strawberries, as well as a half-dozen carrots and a bowl of sugar-snap-size peas (they're not a mange tout/sugar snap variety, but we're eating them as such). We then popped out to collect a dozen heads of elderflowers, and set an experimental bucket of wine going: elder rosé. This is something I thought up last autumn and wanted to try, but have had to wait for the elderflowers, having frozen the elderberries I needed. My thinking is that a rosé based on the elderflower and elderberry wine would be interesting, as I find the latter has too much tannin, but the former has, naturally, none.

So, I halved both recipes, and combined them. We'll see what happens.

With the kilo of strawberries, we've tried making an elderflower and strawberry jam. Hazel made jars of this (and about six other jams) as favours at her wedding. It's a nice change from straight-up strawberry jam: hers was a little less sweet, and the floral addition worked really well. It seems to have set well, which I'm really pleased about: hopefully it will also taste good.