Poached Apricots with Honeysuckle Syrup and Gluten Free Granola

I was rather disappointed in a punnet of apricots that I bought, they were rather hard and tasteless, so I poached them in a little water and sugar, creating a luscious pan of soft sweet fruit.

I received some Nature's Path, Gluten Free, Nice and Nobbly Granola.  It's a really tasty cereal to eat for breakfast or to use, as I did, in this dessert.  I used the Pumpkin Seeds, almonds, raisins and cinnamon granola and layered up the poached apricots, granola, and Greek Yogurt, finishing with a sprinkle of granola and some Honeysuckle Syrup (see below)






You may remember that I reviewed The Foragers Kitchen  by Fiona Bird, back in May.  I was enthusiastic about the book at the time and was eagerly anticipating the different seasons.  One of the foraged ingredients that really intrigued me was Honeysuckle.  I had not idea you could do anything with Honeysuckle although I've always love the smell of it and it grows in abundance in the hedges up the lanes to our farm.  This year with the warm weather, it has been particularly prolific.

Honeysuckle Flowers

Honeysuckle Syrup
Makes 1 small bottle

What to forage and find:
2 large handfuls of honeysuckle (12-15 blossoms)
Scant 1 1/2 cups (350ml) boiling water (50ml will evaporate or soak into the blossom)
1 cup (200g) superfine (caster) sugar

What to do:
1. Allow the honeysuckle blossom to steep in the water for as long as possible (at least 8 hours)
2. Strain the blossom liquid well, and squeeze the blossom to ensue that you have as much liquid as possible.
3. Put the blossom water into a saucepan, and add the sugar.
4. Dissolve the sugar over low heat, then boil rapidly to reduce and thicken the syrup to about 3/4 cup (175ml)


I've been asked what Honeysuckle syrup tastes like, it tastes a little like honey and a bit like the flowers smell, it's a lovely sweet floral flavour.  I did wonder if it was just the sugar, but I also made some Elderflower syrup (more of that in a future post) and it tastes completely different.

Fiona suggests that you drizzle this syrup over ice cream.  If you keep one or two small plastic bottles of the in the freezer you can glaze your Christmas ham in wild summer blossom.

The Forager's Kitchen is published by CICO Books
RRP £16.99
Popular online book store £10.87

Thanks to Fiona Bird and Mark at Cico Books for allowing me to publish this recipe.
I received the Nature's Path Gluten Free Granola for review, I was not paid for this post and all opinions are my own.

Labels: apricots, Cico Books, Fiona Bird, gluten free, Granola, greek yogurt, Honeysuckle, Nature's Path, syrup, The Forager's Kitchen

posted by Janice @ 22:27 11 Comments

Blue and Green Soup with Gluten Free Cheese Scones

Because I have been eating the Bulgar Salad for lunch, I haven't had my usual sandwiches and therefore we have not used as much lettuce as before.  I was blissfully unaware of this when I ordered the shopping online and ordered up another pack of Romaine lettuces.  We also seemed to have a head of broccoli left over.  I know, I really should check the fridge before doing my shopping.

The No Waste Food Challenge run by Kate at Turquoise Lemons also asked us to use up left over Fennel.  Now,  I love fennel and rarely have any left over, but it was a good excuse to go and buy some so I have included at little of  it in this recipe.



 Put the oil in the pan at a medium heat, add the onion and saute for about 5 minutes until soft.  Add the chopped broccoli.


and stir to coat with the oil and onion.  Add the stock, I use Marigold Swiss Vegetable Bouillon but you can use any stock.

Season and cook until the vegetables are soft.  Take off the heat for about 10 minutes and then blitz with a stick blender or in a liquidiser.  Add the milk and the Blue Cheese to taste and blitz again.

I turned to my standard scone recipe from Mary Berry's Fast Cakes, it's never failed me yet, even when I change the ingredients as much as I have here!

Gluten Free Special Scones
225g White self-raising Gluten and Wheat Free flour
1 level tsp gluten free baking powder
50g Pure Sunflower dairy free margarine
1/2 tsp Coleman's mustard powder
50g grated cheese
1 egg
milk or natural yogurt

Heat the oven to 220C and lightly grease a baking sheet
Put the flour and baking powder in a bowl and add the margarine, rub it in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Stir in the mustard powder and the grated cheese.

 Crack the egg into a jug, lightly beat it and then make up to 150ml with milk or yogurt. Stir the egg mixture into the flour and mix to a soft dough.


Turn onto a lightly floured table and pat out to about 1.25 (1/2 inch) thickness.
Cut into rounds, I made my big as we were having them as 'rolls' with our soup.  Place spaced out on the baking sheet and brush the tops with milk or yogurt and sprinkle with a little more cheese.

I'm showing you this so you can see how thick they are cut.

Bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes (depending on how big you made them)  until they are pale golden brown.  Remove and leave to cool on a wire rack.




 Not only was the soup good, although dominated by the broccoli and blue cheese flavours, but the scones were excellent.  A little more chewy in texture than the wheat flour ones, but definitely good and a very acceptable substitute.  They could also be adapted to be dairy free by using substitutes for the milk/yogurt and cheese.

Labels: Bookmarked Recipes, Broccoli, cheese, dairy free, Fennel, gluten free, lettuce, No Waste Food Challenge, Scones, Soup, Tinned Tomatoes, Turquoise Lemons

posted by Janice @ 14:05 8 Comments

Gluten Free Irish Scones

The mixes come from Virginia Health Ltd in County Cork, a family company supplying milled seeds such as flaxseed, hemp seeds, sunflowerseeds, pumpkinseeds and protein powders direct from the farm to your table for everyday use.   Helen O'Dowd, the founding director,  is a busy mum, nutritionist and food scientist. As well as the seeds Helen's Healing Foods features two  gluten free bread mixes and the scone mix.  I was also given the sandwich loaf mix to make, but unfortunately I read the instructions wrong and made a bit of a disaster!  Nothing to do with the mix,  totally my error.

The scone mix is very easy to make up you just add an egg, 28g melted butter or vegetable oil and 200ml buttermilk or whole milk or soya milk  and mix together with the dry ingredients in the pack.  It is a much wetter mixture than the usual scone mix so you spoon the batter onto your baking tray rather than cut out the scones with a cutter.

I put the scones in the oven with some trepidation, but they rose beautifully and were light and tasted good.  Not quite the usual scone taste but my MIL approved and pronounced them 'frush' which means they crumble but are not dry! 
I wasn't quite sure about flavoured honey, but tried it out on one of the scones and it was quite good.  I don't really think honey needs any extra flavour but it was a bit of a novelty.  Anyway I thought I'd see what it was like in cooking and see if I could make a dessert from the ingredients I'd been provided with.

I had a few gooseberries left in the freezer from last summer, so added a tablespoon of the ginger honey to them and put them in the oven on a low heat for about 40 minutes until the gooseberries had softened and cooked through and the honey melted into them to make a sweet, gingery sauce.

This month's Tea Time Treats has Scones as the theme, so I'm entering my Honey Gooseberry Scones as an indulgent tea time treat!  It's hosted this month by Karen at  Lavender and Lovage  the challenge is hosted alternately by What Kate Baked why not join in?

Labels: Connemara, gluten free, gooseberries, Irish foods, Irish Whiskey, Mileeven Fine Foods, Sarah's Zesty Honey, Scone mix, St Patrick, Tea Time Treats

posted by Janice @ 19:36 6 Comments