Cookie's Corner ~ In Which I get A Loverly Pressie and Decide to Test Some Traditional Recipes

Welcome Me Loverlies To Woden's Day !!!

Here we are again at Cookie's Corner and today I have something rather special for you. This came from something rather special that was given to me by my Bootiful Cousin last week.

You see what happened was that she had found a rather loverly little book about old fashioned preserves and chutneys in the local charity shop and grabbed it for me. Which I thought was rather loverly to be honest and it had all the kind of recipes you never see anymore like Rose Petal Jam and other recipes that are old country recipes based on hedgerow ingredients for the most part. Elated I was with it, in fact it is now with the very special favourite books I keep next to the bed !!!

A couple of days later my Bootiful Cousin and I were having a sneaky peek around the Refurnish shop, like you do when youa re a foraging pixie like me and I spied some rather loverly hand-thrown pottery kitchen jars. A rather stunning set that I fell immediately in love with but unfortunately at that moment had about 50p to my name and they were a little bit more than that. So I toddled off to look further up the window and all of a sudden I saw my cousin in the shop and I was accosted by Himself who told me with a big grin on his face to go in cos I was wanted. So I did. My Bootiful Cousin whom I love dearly had bought the set of kitchen jars for me.

So here they are in all thier glory !!!!

Now these particular 3 were the ones I became rather inspired by to make my own.

Around here I make from scratch as much as I can and it has been a rather long time since I made mint sauce so that was the first one.

The second was the marmalade, which I tend to make rather more regularly especially when we have left over citrus fruit at the end of the fortnight. So that was easy enough, not Orange this time but tangerines so it made a rather more fluid offering but none the less yummy .

However for this week's offering I thought I would let you into the most incredible little recipe I found in the wonderful little recipe book from my cousin.

Parsely Honey

What the....!!??!! I hear you say. Yeap that is exactly what I said to. However the origins of this recipe are loverly and you know me always a sucker for a tradition and history of what I am making. So Parsley Honey was made during the Second World War as a substitute for the real thing as it was alot scarer than sugar at the time.

Now I have to tell I was rather sceptical about this but any book that has a recipe for Primrose Cordial has to know what it is talking about !!!

So I went for it and you know what it is AMAZING!!! it actually looks and tastes like runny Heather Honey!!! Strange but true!!!

So here is the recipe for you to try it out for yourself and I am using old measures because it is a tradional recipe and I think all parts of that should be preserved.

Parsely Honey

6oz fresh Parsley
1 1/2 Pints Water
1 lb Sugar
Juice of a small Lemon

-Wash the Parsely and chop it roughly even the stalks and put into a pan with the water.

-Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 30 minutes and then strain and measure the resulting juice.

- Put the juice in a clean pot with the Lemon Juice and 1 lb Sugar for every pint of Parlsey Juice.

- Stir well over a low heat until the sugar is completely dissolved then bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or so, until the mixture is clear and syrupy

- Pour into warm, sterilised jars, cover and seal whilst hot.

Now when I maede mine I ended up with a bit over 2 pints of Parsely Honey and I am quite proud of my large jar in the cupboard as well as the loverly jar on the bench in the kitchen.

The best bit was the faery princesses were visiting when I made it and they both loved it. I figure you can't ask for better than that !!!!

Time for me to toddle off now and get some sleep.

Have a wonderful rest of whatever you are doing.

If you would like to try any others of my recipes follow this link to my book Which is Which?

Which is Which ?

xox Love and Light xox

Bloo on Green ~ In which a little town in Devon is saved from the evil empire and I makes some scoops for flour and whatever else

Happy Thors Day me Loverlies!!!

Well what an exciting day yesterday was !!! In fact you might have even seen our loverly little town on the news. There has been a big fight between the towns people and MVV/Gilpin's who want to put an Incinerator Bottom Ash sorting facility across the road from where we live. In fact its less than 100 metres away. Not to bore you with the details but yesterday was the hearing for the development management commitee to rule on the planning permission. Well guess what !!??!! WE WON!!! YAY!!!! 6 votes to 5 but we won !!!

This now means that our beloved Greater Horseshoe Bat population won't be at risk (and just by the way it is the biggest population of them in Europe) and our kids aren't going to be breathing in the horrific dust and dodging trucks to cross the road.

Anyone who says that locals can't have a say and change things haven't tried!!!

One of the wonderful spouts of gibberish the MVV were using was to say because of our attitude we don't want to recycle... WELL REALLY!!! This Thursday slot is about to prove them wrong!!! and I will continue to prove them wrong for the rest of my days!!!

Due to this I wanted to find a way to reuse our milk cartons. A really useful way that can be very helpful and show there are many ways to reuse those things tha tend to get chucked out to the recycling.

Today we are going to make scoops.

Scoops have millions of uses, of course scooping in their main use but if you are clever you can use them as a tool to help you with all kinds of jobs. In the garden, in the kitchen, in the bathroom all over the place really and if you are really stuck for a dustpan a homemade scoop works for that too.

So here we go ... How to make a homemade milk bottle scoop :~

Right well first off wash your chosen bottle out thoroughly the last thing you want is to have a stinky stale milk smell happening.

Next draw your cut mark around the bottle as shown here :~

Then cut around the line carefully either using scissors or a stanley knife, please be careful though 5 fingers are better than 4 at this stage!!!

Once this is done you should have 2 pieces of your bottle that look like this :~

The large piece is your scoop and from here you can use it for whatever you see fit or need it for. This can be done with ANY size milk bottle so you can have teeny ones for flour and sugar or medium ones like this for compost or using in the bath for your hair.

"What do we do with the top bit???" I hear you cry, well this is quite fun actually because now you have a very useful funnel that fits quite neatly over the top of a squash bottle or inside a jam jar or anything else you might need.

So there you go 2 for the price of 1 haha

oh and as for the lids, keep them safe somewhere we will do something with them another day. 

Have a fantastic rest of the day, enjoy finding uses for your scoops and funnels.

xox Love and Light xox