This weekend we decided to try and make something of the rose hips at the garden gate. After a few hours collecting (This must be one of the few plants which is able to fight back) we had two pounds of rosehips and only mild blood loss from the scratches. We started to split the rose hips in order to remove the seeds and hairs. This was reported as essential as the hairs are the cause of the problem described by the Aborigines as "itchy bottom disease" which might be quite unpleasant if I could work out what the symptoms are. This was laborious and fortunately we found a recipe in Smallholder magazine which came to our aid.
In this recipe there is no need to de-seed the hips.
- Take two pounds of hips and turn them into a rough pulp in the blender.
- Boil them with 2 litres of water.
- Stain the pulp through muslin and keep the liquid.
- Boil the liquid until it has reduced by a third and allow to cool
- Add a bag of sugar and bring back to the boil.
- Boil for 5 minutes then bottle.
