It was bound to happen sooner or later – one of the kids has a cold. Aside from the rare sniffle or cough, we have been healthy all fall and winter – with much credit, I think, to the many healing drinks (see some here, here, and here) and nourishing foods (see some here and here) we’ve been enjoying.
I suppose because we haven’t felt a great need to, I haven’t made elderberry syrup yet, though I’ve had elderberries from this wonderful herbal establishment for months. Today our little one’s sniffles signalled that it would be a great time to make some.
After searching online a few places, I ended up making a simple recipe based on the amount of dried berries we had on hand. I added some foraged rose hips since we didn’t have many elderberries!
Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup dried elderberries (I wasn’t planning to write a post when I started making the syrup, and neglected to take a picture of the dried elderberries. You can see them in the second photo, which is of our chocolate elderberry syrup ingredients).
- 3 tablespoons dried rose hips
- 1.5 cups water
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- a bit of grated ginger or just a 1″ piece of ginger, peeled
- 2-3 tablespoons honey (vary depending on how sweet you’d like your syrup)
Directions:
1. Add the water, elderberries, rose hips, cinnamon, and ginger to a pot.
2. Bring to a boil, and then simmer on low for 30-40 minutes.
3. Using a sieve, strain and mash the berries, getting out as much goodness as you can!*
4. Once the syrup is still warm, but not hot, add the honey.
5. Pour off into a canning jar or bottle and use as needed. Store in the refrigerator.
Note: After I strained my syrup, I was staring at the berries and wondering how to extend them – if I could get another, smaller, batch of syrup. Then Brittany from The Pistachio Project tweeted a great idea for getting more out of the berries. Perfect.
Optional: We LOVE adding star anise to our syrup, and keeping it in the jar or bottle in the fridge so that it tastes more and more like licorice each day!
Alternate: We’ve also made chocolate elderberry syrup which is delicious for pancakes, waffles, etc.
This post was shared as a part of Simply Natural Saturdays and Simple Lives Thursday.
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