The very short asparagus season is in full swing at the moment. This delicious vegetable (or is it a herb?) has a very short season of between 6 and 8 weeks. It is normally available in the UK from the beginning of May, but this year the season was a couple of weeks early due to the warm and dry weather we had in March/April.
Most years I make elderflower champagne, and sometimes it is good; more often it is explosive and very, very dry! The recipe I use is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s from River Cottage…
This year I am hoping for a good, fizzy variety…
The elderflower season is pretty short, and elderflower cordial is an easy recipe to allow you to savour the great elderflower aroma later in the year. If you are planning to keep this cordial for any length of time you will (a) need a lot of willpower, and (b) ensure that you add the Tartaric Acid.
Everything seems to be early this year, and the Elder bushes coming in to bloom are no exception! Elderflowers have a glorious aromatic quality and make great cordials, sorbets and champagne (more of that in a later post…)
I picked up a large bag of lemons at Bicester street market yesterday in preparation for making one of my favourite sorbets – elderflower (although you could leave the elderflowers out and call it lemon sorbet if you wished!)
Now that English strawberries are starting to appear in the supermarkets and grocers, it is time to make my favourite Muffins! Along with all muffin recipes, there are a couple of tricks to make them foolproof ~ It is important to measure the baking powder accurately, and even more importantly: once you mix the dry and wet ingredients together, the quicker you are at getting them muffins in the oven, the better they will turn out!
© 2012 Alex Goodey