Holy Moly what a summer!

by Leksands Gästhem

HELLO!!!!

I am extremely disappointed that I had no time to update the blog this summer. I was merely too busy. Our first summer season is more or less over now, and what a season it has been. Lots of fun, hard work, mistakes made, lessons learned but in general it went great. We are still here, even though at times I felt like I couldn’t go on. I know now what is in store, and I welcome the challenge with open arms!

We are now getting ready for the first Farmers market of the season this Saturday. We have been part of the Farmers market for a couple of years now as ‘Sandbacken’, this year we will be there as Leksands Guesthouse. Check out their website for more details.

I’ll post more about our summer soon, but for the time being, here’s my easily remembered cordial recipe that works for pretty much all berry’s and fruit (I am this very second making red and black currant cordial).

Per liter of berries, use 3 dl water (eg: 2liters berries, 6 dl water and so on)

Place all berries/fruit and water in a large sauce pan

(at this point you can go wild and throw in some spices and stuff, for example a vanilla pod, cardamom, mint leaves or cinamon – whatever takes your fancy!)

Bring to the boil, then let simmer for about 10 minutes

Then poor everything through a muslin cloth and let it run/drip into another saucepan or bucket for a couple of hours

Measure the cordial that you have, and per liter of cordial, add 6 dl sugar (eg, 2 liters cordial, add 12dl sugar)

Bring to the boil until the sugar melts, then simmer for a couple of minutes whilst you ‘skim’ the cordial (i.e. skim off the bubbly layer from the surface – this is what can start to mould in your bottle if you don’t bother with this step).

Then pour into warm sterilised bottles and voila!

This will last at least a year unopened in a cool dark place, and several weeks once opened in the fridge. But I’m pretty sure you’ll drink it all up in no time!