Summertime, and the Livin' Is Easy

 A view of the border from the wildflower meadow

Summertime and the livin' is easy
berries are poppin'
and the cornflowers are high

Summertime is certainly easy, not to mention fab when you are a gardener and it's even better if you are a potagerer as well. At this time of year my garden certainly lives up to its name: Bliss!

My big border (17 meters long) is jam-packed with flowers to my utter delight. The butterflies and bees are pretty ecstatic about it too.

With such a profusion of flowers it's not hard to indulge yourself with bouquets galore!

Been to Normandy, France, recently where they go utterly rose bonkers in June. Well, they are not the only ones as my own garden has quite a few roses growing in it as well.

This is Constance Spry, making her debute chez Bliss. It's a climber that flowers profusely but only once. It's fragrance is exactly what you'd expect a rose to smell like. I love roses, not only because they delight the eye, nose, heart and soul of many a gardener but also because they are a culinary delight.

Here's a recipe to make rose syrup with solar power only:

Fill a glass jar with fragrant rose petals and add 1 lime cut into four. Fill the jar up with cold springwater and put it in the sun for a few days. Give it a shake every now and again.

Pour it through a sieve and measure the liquid. Add 400 grams of sugar per liter. Then put it back in the sun for a few more days before you bottle it. Pour out a measure of rose syrup in a longdrink glass and fill it up with cold (sparkly) water. Cheers!

You can also turn strawberries, violets, elderflowers etc. into  syrup in this simple and easy way. I wasn't joking about summertime being easy.

The Bliss entrance fragrantly covered with Guirlande D'Amour and Madame Alfred Carriere

But it's not only the roses that do well chez Bliss; the potager is producing a tremendous amount of yummy food on a daily basis now.

So much in fact that you can't eat it all straight from the garden; my favourite way of stuffing my face with homegrown food. So I decided to make an utterly scrumptious dessert with my glut of

gooseberries.

Gooseberry & elderflower custard:
- 500 grams of gooseberries
- 2 to 3 elderflowers
- 1 cup of cream
- 1/2 a cup of sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg yolk
-  butter

Put a knob of butter in the pan and put it on a low fire. Add the gooseberries, elderflowers and sugar. Bring it to the boil and let it simmer until the fruit is soft.

Whip the cream, eggs and egg yolk together and add gently to the mixture. Keep stirring until it starts to thicken up.

Pour it in a bowl and let it cool off. Then put it in the fridge for a few hours before serving.

 Bon appetit!

Summertime, and the cookin' is easy 

Next time I will blog about my garden filled holiday in Normandy, France. 

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Addendum: for making rose syrup you can also use tapwater if it's of a good quality, if not, use bottled water from supermarket. I leave the jars out at night, it's balmy so why not?


Copyright 2010 Y.E.W. Heuzen