How To: Make Bilberry Wine

I live in the lovely countryside of West Yorkshire, and 'round these parts we have tons of bilberry bushes. Now, for those of you who don't know what a bilberry is, it's a bit like a blueberry but smaller and tastes a little less sweet, but still delicious.

Normally, our family goes bilberry picking together on the weekend of my mums birthday, which falls in early July. However, because the weather has been so ridiculous this year the bilberries are only just coming out now, in late August. So, off I went to get me some bilberries.

Usually we make either bilberry jam, or a few bilberry crumbles. This year I thought I'd give bilberry wine a go...

I make my own wine regularly, but I have realised that I have only ever blogged about it once, which was a while ago, so I thought I'd do some wine recipe sharing again :)

Equipment:

Fermentation Bucket (with lid) Demijohn with Cork and Airlock Wine Bottles

**All equipment MUST be sterilized before you start the process, I cannot stress this enough**

Ingredients:
3 lbs. Bilberries/Blueberries (if you can't find a bilberry bush)
4 1/2 Cups Sugar
1 Teaspoon Pectic Enzymes
1 Campden Tablet
1 Packet Wine Yeast
1 Teaspoon Potassium Sorbate

1. First things first: clean and disinfect ALL your tools AND your wine making area.
2. Clean and crush the bilberries.
3. Fill up the fermentation bucket up with your bilberries and water (up to the one gallon mark).
4. Add sugar and yeast.
5. Stick the lid on it.
6. Stir every 24 hours for a week.
7. Siphon (or "rack") the wine from the bucket to the demijohn and seal with the airlock.
8. Once the airlock has stopped reacting, add Potassium Sorbate to your wine.
9. Allow wine to settle for at least 3 days.
10. Bottle it.

30 days is the minimum time you should allow for the process. If you wait longer, your wine will taste better. My advice is once you bottle the wine, let it sit for between 6 months to a year.

It's so easy. Honestly. If I can do it, anyone can.

It's Almost That Time of Year Again...

Well hello there! 

So, I haven't done a blog post in a little while and I've decided to blow off the cobwebs and get back into it! Apologies for my brief absence, what can I say? I'm a busy bee!

Last week my mum received a very odd text from a neighbour of ours simply asking "Do you want a cabbage?". Of course we did! So a few hours later a huge cabbage, fresh from their garden, was sitting next to our kitchen sink. Lovely.

We have been gradually munching our way through it all week, but there's only so much cabbage one can eat with dinner. 

Lately the weather here has been a bit iffy, you can tell Autumn is on its way already, and today was looking a bit grim. A friend of mine came round for lunch (we like to pretend we're classy that way, being 'Ladies What Lunch' and what-not), and there's one classic meal that can comfortably ease you into the Autumnal weather - soup!

Therefore, with the remaining bit of cabbage, I give you.... MINESTRONE SOUP!

Ingredients:

3 Large Carrots, Chopped

1 Large Onion, Chopped

4 Celery Sticks, Chopped

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

2 Garlic Cloves, Crushed

2 Large Potatoes, Cut into Small Chunks

2 Tablespoons Tomato Puree

2L Vegetable Stock

400g Can Chopped Tomatoes

400g Can Kidney Beans

140g Spaghetti, Snapped Short

1/2 Head Savoy Cabbage, Shredded

1. In a food processor whizz the carrots, onion and celery into small pieces.

2. Heat the oil in a pan and add the processed veg, garlic and potatoes over a high heat for 5mins until softened.

3. Stir in the puree, stock and tomatoes. Bring to the boil then cover and leave to simmer for about 10mins.

4. Tip in the beans and pasta then leave to cook for a further 10mins.

5. Add the cabbage for the final 2mins.

6. Season to taste.

As with most soups, this goes down very well with crusty bread, especially Black Olive and Rosemary Bread, a recipe from an earlier blog post.

Lovely jubly.