Sloe gin, spelt, and samphire

Clare’s taking a break from the blog today, so it’s time for my first ever Vegan MoFo post.

A month ago I mentioned to a friend that we had made sloe gin for my parents last year. She remarked that she was also fond of it, so I promptly promised her a bottle. We went foraging last weekend and arrived back at the flat with a bag full of sloes and another bag full of rock samphire.

The recipe is simple: prick 200 grams of sloes with a fork, add 200 grams of organic sugar, and pour on 75 centilitres of gin. Give it a stir, and then put it into a bottle. This bottle should be bigger than the one the gin came in — we didn’t think about that and ended up tipping the spare gin down the sink (as neither Clare nor I drink alcohol).

I decorated the bottle with a wintry scene using gel pens, and made a cute gift tag which I tied to the bottle with some spare ribbon. It was well received.

Meanwhile, I used the samphire to make crackers. I pulled the leaves from the stem, ending up with about two tablespoons full, then put them in a sieve, rinsed them, and steamed them for ten minutes over a stock pot. After chopping them finely I mixed them with 150 grams of organic wholemeal spelt flour, half a teaspoon of salt, 75 millilitres of water, and two and a half tablespoons (about 40 millilitres) of olive oil. I rolled out the dough onto baking parchment to make a layer about two millimetres thick, and then baked them for twenty minutes at 200°C.