Berry Cooking and Painting

I have been painting some elderberry, hawthorn and rowan berries today...
These are pictures of the silk whilst still wet

So while it dried I went off to make more rosehip syrup

Here's the recipe for you:

1 kg rosehips

3 litres water
1kg granulated sugar

Boil 2 litres of the water

Chop the hips in the food processor and add to the water

Bring back to boil and leave to stand for 20 mins

Strain the contents through muslin to extract the liquid (messy business)

put the liquid to one side

return the left over pulp to the pan with a further litre of water and repeat the process through the muslin

Take all the liquid through muslin one more time to get it really clear.
Now discard the hips/mess and put all your liquid in the  pan, add the sugar to melt, simmer for about 15 mins

Transfer into sterilised bottles.

Messy? fiddly? yes - to be honest, very!

I added a dash of culinary rosewater essence  at the end this time so it smells yummy too.

and then back to my silk which has now been washed and finished:

(sorry about picture quality, am using mobile phone camera for a while)