Foraged Fruit Crumble

I know some of you will scorn, either because you think this should have happened ages ago, or because you think it's maybe a bit minging, but for me this is very, very exciting.

Yesterday the boys and I went to the park with a friend, M and her two girls to feed the ducks and have a play.

While the children were investigating the edge of a field, one of them came rushing back to us proudly clutching a berry.

I was immediately excited simply because it wasn't one the those red/orange things that usually get squished into my car seats.

So the grown ups (me included) went to check them out. We found a tree bursting with sloe berries. Thankfully, because we'd been feeding the ducks using a bag of chicken food my excellent friend had so thoughtfully brought with her, we had an empty carrier bag. So the four kids helped us collect sloe berries as well as some elderberries M had noticed and we filled our bag. My boys were so excited, so proud of themselves bless 'em.

So we rushed back to M's house to make a fruit crumble using the berries we'd collected and some apple & pears from her garden.

I have to be honest, I wasn't very brave when M was picking the bugs out as we washed the fruit. I can't stand earwigs, they freak me out, so watching her let them crawl all over her hands as she collecting them from the fruity water made me squeal like a big girl.

Anyhoo, I bravely de-stalked the fruit as M made the crumble. I like the way M didn't faff with the fruit to make the crumble, she just threw it all in a pan, sprinkled some sugar over, then covered the lot in crumble mix and baked it for an hour.

Man, it was tasty. Especially because it was gluten free, so I could eat it without falling asleep yay!

I could eat crumble all day.

I took a massive bowl full of berries home with me and spent today boiling it down and blitzing it in the juicer. It turned into this rich, thick syrup. I froze it in ice cube trays for adding to fruit smoothies  and the like. Since there was so much juicy pulp left over, I put it back into the pan with some hot water and some sugar, boiled it, then sieved it & added it to gin.

I tested that earlier, and it's a little too feisty to drink over ice, so maybe I'll add more sugar or berries or both. I'll decide later.

Looking forward to throwing some of those fruity ice cubes into a shake in the future....