When life Sends you Lemons...

Easy peasy recipe today although it's so easy I'm not sure it counts as a recipe!

I found these gorgeous Grolsch Beer bottles on their way to a bin in a house that doesn't recycle (I know, right?!?!?) and rescued them... It's taken a couple of weeks but i've managed to make something that's perfect for them - Lemon Cordial. The recipes I have say it will keep for a year but with the sixteen year old in my house I'll be lucky if it lasts until next month!

Basically dissolve sugar in freshly squeezed lemon juice (at a ratio of about 1-1.2kg sugar per litre of juice) by warming it gently until the sugar is disolved. I haven't done much experimentation here but the research i did suggested that the mixture shouldn't reach the boil. In reality the sugar disolved by the time the juice was body temperature - which is when I stopped heating it and bottled in sterile bottles. You can water bath preserve if you're pedantic but I really don't think this is necessary. Having left the cordial for a couple of hours I've decided that next time I am going to strain it before bottling - this version has separated with quite a lot of scummy lemon cells on top... Yes, I can be a silly, annoying perfectionist some days!

The sixteen-year-old did a taste test (tot of syrup and fill the glass with cold water) and gave it a massive thumbs up (in teenager that's a grunt and gulp and then pouring another for those of you who haven't got a teenager in your life...)

Something Pretty

 

Even though the weather was summery and warm, I felt the need to make something beautiful inside today... I collected a bunch of tins, found some remnants of gorgeous fabric and set about making pencil holders / desk organisers.

Simple enough - I tried double sided tape and contact adhesive to stick the fabric strips onto the tins but neither worked all that well: the double sided tape came undone within a couple of hours whilst the contact adhesive went straight through the fabric and didn't look all that great. Time to take out the big guns! Enter the amazing glue gun... I'm sure it's already saved lives! Word of caution though is that the glue is HOT, very hot and if you get it on your fingers it sticks and continues to burn... but once I got that out of the way it was great fun!

Here are the results:

The makings of a fun afternoon

I covered all of the tins in fabric first

Then added embellishments and ribbons for a little sparkle!

So chuffed with the lovely results :-)