Blackberry Muffins

Its a great year for blackberries in Ireland!  The past two days I've been out picking.  This year they are big fat and juicy but also sour.  I've been playing around with a low sugar/low fat muffin/cake recipe for a few weeks. Using my all time fav zucchini muffin recipe I replaced almost all of the oil with that old standby of apple sauce.  Also cut down the sugar (hey apples are Sweet!!!).

Blackberry Muffins
For 12 Muffins
2 apples
2 eggs
1/4 cup of sugar (If you want a sweeter use 1/2 cup instead)
1/8 cup of rapeseed oil
1 orange (the zest and juice)
1 tsp vanilla

1 cup whole wheat flour
2 cups self rising flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

pinch of salt

2 cups blackberries

 Oven 170c.  Peel and chop the apples.  Cover with water and bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and cook till soft about 5 min.  Blend or mash.  Cool a bit.  Mix with wet: eggs, sugar, oil, orange and vanilla.  Add the dry: flours, spice, salt.  Mix and add blackberries.  Fill the muffin tin and into the oven for about 30 min. 

These are a great breakfast muffin.  Most and not very sweet.  If you are used to  white flour, oil and sugar you may need to add 1/4  cup more sugar the first time you try this recipe.  The blackberries are soar this year so I'm going to add it next time!

Elderflower Cordial

The Elder is blooming. Last weekend I picked about 40 heads and I used half of those to made my first ever elderflower cordial. I used a recipe from selfsufficientish.com but I used 2 limes rather than a lemon.
I've never even seen cordial of any kind in Kansas but here in Ireland elderflower cordial is sold everywhere. Cordial is a very sweet fruity syrup which is diluted with water or soda water.
Elderflower Cordial
Makes about 1 litre
20 elderflower heads
2 limes (sliced)
2 tsp citric acid
1.5 kg sugar
1.2 ltr water (boiling)

Dissolve the the sugar in the water. Add the elderflowers, limes and citric acid. Cover and leave for a few days (some recipes say 24 hours, 48 hours or even 5 days). I went with the 4 days as I kept forgetting find some bottles! Make sure you give the brew a mix everyday.

Strain using cheese cloth or muslin and funnel into sterile bottles.

Enjoy right way and or keep in the frig for the next year. I've mixed mine a few ways so far water, soda water, mint tea, and orange. I think I like it best with a slice of orange.

Wild Garlic Pesto, Mackerel and Prawns

I've been cooking with wild garlic all week using it like garlic or green onions. The wild garlic has a lighter and less sharp taste which I found really easy to cook with. So I have three recipes to share.
Wild Garlic Pesto
Makes about 1 cup
5 or 6 whole wild garlic (bulb and leaves) or 1 clove garlic and 6 green onions
1 cup of basil (leaves and stems)
1/4 cup of roasted sunflower seeds
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
2-3 Tbs olive oil
salt, pepper, hot pepper to taste

Blend everything slowing adding the olive oil until 95% smooth.

Enjoy raw on fresh bread, on pizza, in tomato soup or mixed with pasta. We did.

Wild Garlic BBQ Mackerel
for 4 small fish 2 med 1 large
4 fresh Mackerel
20 fresh wild garlic leaves
1/2 lemon cut into slices
salt

Wash the mackerel and stuff each one with whole garlic leaves, lemon and salt. Wrap the extra garlic leaves around outside of the fish. BBQ for 10 min turning once or until the meat is white and flaky.
Shawn's Garlic Prawns
4 as a starter 2 as a main
1 pound of prawns (cleaned)
3 cloves of wild garlic or 1 normal
1 Tbs olive oil
salt and pepper

Mash the garlic into the oil. Add salt and pepper to taste (hot pepper anyone??). Fry or BBQ until pink.

Shawn really knows his prawns. These are so buttery (but with no butter).

Gathering Wild Irish Garlic

Our talented ecologist friend (Shawn) very kindly took us to into the woods to look for wild Irish garlic. The woods were full and we gathered a whole bag.
We found two different kinds of garlic on our hunt. The one on the left (it looks like a white bluebell) is called Three Cornered Garlic or Allium triquetrum. It is not native to Ireland, it has a nice round bulb and thin long leaves. On the right(and top photo) is Ramson's or Allium ursinum. This is a native Irish garlic. It's bulb is longer and thinner than the Three Cornered Garlic and its leaves are wider.

The top garlic is Ramson's and the round bottom ones are Three Cornered Garlic. The bulbs are a bit small (they will be bigger in a few weeks, but the whole plant can be eaten. My next post with have a recipe for both.

Nettle Tea

The weather has been grand here and over the weekend we planted our vegetable garden. But there is one plant (which we did not plant) was ready for harvest.

I wore kitchen gloves to pick and wash the nettles. The young green leaves are the best.

Nettle Tea
makes 1 pot
1/2 cup fresh nettles
boiling water

I brewed my tea for about 3min and it had a light earth taste. Not bitter or gross at all. But I think next time I'm going to add a bit of mint.