Stained Glass Bottles

Stained glass bottles filled with love

Decorate your old jam jars or wine bottles with stained glass paint, and fill your stained glass bottles with home-made biscuits, lemonade, ginger beer, with flavoured sugar, homemade chutney or balsamic salad dressing.

Try these easy but delicious recipes.......

Homemade Lemonade

Pour your freshly squeezed lemon juice into an enamel pot or large glass jug that can fit in a pot.
Add 6 cups of sugar per 4 cups of lemon juice. Heat the juice over boiling water but don't bring it o a boil. Keep stirring it until the sugar dissolves.
Pour it through a damp cloth into a glass jug; pour it into your prepared bottles and seal immediately.

Flavoured Sugar

For an attractive gift, make your own flavoured sugar and pour it into your decorated glass jars. Your friends will love this very useful and pretty gift.
To make flavoured sugar:
You'll need - 2 Vanilla pods and 1kg of sugar
Slice the pods lengthways, scrape out the seeds and rub them into the sugar with your fingers. Cut the empty pods in half, place them into the jars and pour the flavoured sugar on top.

Homemade Ginger Beer

Ingredients:
2,5 Litre water
14g freshly bruised ginger
1 cup sugar
7.5 ml dry yeast
1/2 tspoon sugar
1/2 cup of lukewarm water
1/2 thinly sliced lemon
Boil the water, sugar and ginger together and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Pour it in a glass jug or plastic bucket and let it cool down until lukewarm. Mix the yeast, sugar and 1/2 cup lukewarm water together and let it stand for approximately 5 - 10 minutes.
Add the yeast to the sugar water and add the lemon slices. Let the mixture stand for about 24 hours before pouring it through a dam cloth.
Pour it into your prepared bottles and seal it. Within a day or 2 your ginger beer will be ready to drink.

Homemade Chutney

Make this deliciously easy chutney and pour it into a pretty glass jar for a unique but frugal housewarming, birthday or Christmas gift.
Ingredients:
2 Tbspoons of oil
500g peaches, peeled and chopped
5ml crushed garlic
3 large onions, finely chopped
1kg tomatoes cut in half
5ml crushed garlic
350ml white vinegar
200g brown sugar
2 tspoons paprika
2 tspoons ginger
1/2 tspoon English mustard powder
Heat the oil in an enamel pot and cook the onion, garlic with a pinch of salt over medium heat until translucent. Add the tomatoes, peaches and spices and cook it for about 10 minutes.
Add the sugar and vinegar and wait for it to boil before lowering the heat and simmering the chutney for about 20 - 30 minutes - the mixture will thicken, so make sure your stir it every now and again to prevent it from catching.
Pour the chutney into clean containers and seal it immediately. Make sure no metal touches the chutney during or after the cooking process.

Balsamic Salad Dressing

This is delicious on salad, served as a bread dipping with Olive oil and *Dukkah or drizzled over cheese.
Ingredients:
To make 500ml:
400ml water
250ml Balsamic vinegar
500g white sugar
Mix all the ingredients together and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
Place it in a pot on your stove top and bring the liquid to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 1 hour until the liquid becomes shiny ad has thickened (syrup like) - to check if it's ready, pour a tiny amount on a cold plate, if it sets slightly, then it is ready.
Remove the pot from the stove and pour it into your painted glass bottles

*Dukkah is a delicious spice blend consisting mostly of toasted crushed hazelnuts, toasted sesame seeds, toasted crushed coriander seeds, toasted crushed cumin seeds, ground black pepper and sea salt.