Fruit and cordials

Yesterday I noticed that birds were eating nectarines on one of the trees. Some of these are a little ripe, most are still hard – but I decided to pick them all. The ripe ones are SO juicy and delicious!

Nectarines and left over lemons

I also picked a large basket full of lemons and a about 40 stalks of rhubarb

3.6kg rhubarb

I made cordial from the lemons and rhubarb. Both are delicious!

Lemon cordial (left) and rhubarb cordial (right) in the light

Rhubarb cordial recipe:
3.6kg rhubarb, chopped into about 10cm lengths
360ml water
Boil for about 30 minutes until rhubarb is completely soft and falling apart
This resulted in 2l of strained juice
I added 1kg raw sugar and heated until the sugar was dissolved
I poured this into 4 hot, sterile bottles.

Lemon cordial recipe:
3.5l lemon juice (squeezing the lemons is the hardest part!)
1C lemon zest
1.5l water
3kg raw sugar
Heat until the sugar is dissolved, pour into hot, sterile bottles. I ended up with 11 of them.

After allow to cool completely, one bottle of each cordial went in the fridge, the rest went to the freezer.

11 bottles of lemon cordial and 4 bottles of rhubarb cordial