Lemon and lime squash and my home-grown redcurrants

I made home-made lemon and lime squash to use up some fruit which we'd bought for juicing and which hadn't got used.

I can't find the recipe I used, but it's very similar to one used by Hugh of River Cottage (see below)

http://www.rivercottage.net/recipes/lemon-orange-squash/

Some recipes use cream of tartar and citric acid, but as a) it was so tasty it got drunk in a flash and b) the fruit was sharp enough I found it wasn't necessary.

I have posted before about making redcurrant jelly. It's a firm favourite with my family as it's not too sweet and keeps its fruity tang after being made into jam. It's also good with sweet or savoury.

I have previously been given the red currants I have used, but was given a redcurrant bush last year. I was hoping to include a home-grown element this year.

So I have made these lovelies:

Using my usual recipe of choice, a wonderful Delia concoction. And what about the home-grown element, well maybe next year. I only got this many currants....go on, can you spot them?

Ginger cake for Macmillan cancer 'Big Coffee Morning'

I have been busy, but not blogging, since our Summer Fair.

The Fair was a total crash, it was a baking hot day and there was no-one about in the town centre. We had a trickle of people in who knew us, and managed to pull in a few people for home-made cake and coffee. We didn't make a loss, but for the time and effort put in we'd have made more money rattling buckets or packing bags at our local superstore. Boo and hiss.

It's not all to waste, though, we've got a ready prepared tombola for our next event and I've listed a few items on ebay to see how they go.

I'm intending to catch up over the next few weeks with my blogging activity, and pull out a few of the highlights from recent months. It's not going to be everything, and it's not going to be in chronological order!

We had some lovely people at work organise a bake sale for the Macmillan coffee morning, and I'd like to proudly show off my efforts:

I was really pleased with it. The recipe was from all recipes uk, I just increased the ginger content.

It was quick to pull together and looks pretty much like the picture - result!