Copyright
Ruth Ridley
2010

In our house, we bake our own bread using a bread machine and make our own yoghurt using a yoghurt maker.
We try to grow our own fruit and veg but never have enough.
We sell dried culinary lavender in our shop.
Mike makes nettle beer (which he thinks is great but nobody else does!), elderflower champagne and cordial.
Coming soon - I will put some of these recipes up.

Jo Windley’s Elderflower Recipes

Cordial

Take 2 oranges and 2 lemons, squeeze and chop up.
Dissolve 1 bag of granulated sugar and 2oz citric acid in 3 pints boiling water.
Place 20 elderflower heads in a bowl with the oranges and lemons and their juice, and pour the hot liquid over them. Cover, leave to stand for 4 days, and bottle.

Champagne

Squeeze the juice of 1 lemon, slice in four and put with 2 heads of elderflower in full bloom, 1.5lb sugar, 2 tablespoons white vinegar in a large vessel, and pour on 1 gallon cold water. Steep for 24 hours, strain and keep for a fortnight, after which it is ready to drink.

Bread machine recipes
We love our bread machine, and have been using it twice a week for about 2 years.
I make basic white bread, and Mike makes wholemeal.

Basic white bread

Put 300ml warm water in bread machine, followed by 500g strong white flour, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp sugar, 1.25 tsp salt, 1 tsp fast action dried yeast.

Ruth’s savory version
I really like this but the kids are not so keen!

Recipe as above, but use 1 tbsp sesame oil and 1 tbsp olive oil instead of 2 of olive oil, and 1 tbsp soy sauce instead of the salt. Plus toast some sesame and other seeds such as poppy or linseed, and add them at the mixing stage.