Summer berries

Between heavy showers and during a couple, I spent an hour picking red and black currants this morning at my local Pick-Your-Own. I was all alone as the farm is quiet in bad weather, which is a terrible shame. The fruit is hanging off the bushes, the redcurrants looking just like rubies. And I know I've mentioned this before, but it really is so reasonably priced. I popped into Waitrose on the way home to find they were selling redcurrants for £13.27 a kilo. I picked 2.5 kilos for under £3 a kilo. Some mark-up. And no chance you'd buy them for anything more than a fancy garnish on a pudding. So if you have a nearby PYO go to it. It's fun, even in the rain, the fruit is great and it should be reasonably priced, making jam, jelly and freezing sensible options.



With the last batch of fruit we picked (I'm becoming a regular), I made a quick and easy no-cook sorbet (Julia Wight's Exquisite Blackcurrant Sorbet from my new favourite book, Darina Allen's Ballymaloe Cookery Course).

First liquidise your fruit in the blender. I used a mix of black and redcurrants as that's what I had left. Rub the puree through a sieve and mix in the sugar. For a pound of fruit (or 450g) add 6 ounces of caster sugar (or 175g). Freeze in an ice-cream maker or put in a container in the freezer and whisk as it begins to freeze to break up the ice crystals. Luckily I have an ice cream maker. Especially as I have to go outside to get to the room with the freezer in it.

It's a real pity that as usual I took no pictures. The texture was perfect, the flavour almost overpowering. We gobbled it all up in one sitting (and that was just Tom and me as the kids didn't like it - idiots!).