Preserving the Brighton Bakery garden bounty - part 1

It's this time of year that I really love having a kitchen garden.  We've already had plenty of rocket, salad leaves and herbs and a handful of broad beans (no thanks to the slugs) but the first 'proper' crops have now started to appear.  Yesterday Melissa and her mam picked the first harvest of juicy gooseberries from the bush, which I had planned to make into a pie, but unfortunately the crop was a bit smaller than we had thought.  In fact it wasn't even a third of what we needed!  So I changed tack and made a lovely gooseberry compote which we devoured over ice cream last night. 

Gooseberry Compote
makes enough to drizzle over 4 bowls of ice cream

220g gooseberries
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons golden caster sugar (or to taste)

Top and tail the gooseberries and pop into a small saucepan with the water and sugar. 
Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. 
Taste towards the end and adjust to your own taste by adding a little more sugar to make it sweeter (or a little lemon juice if you prefer it a bit sharper).
Leave to cool and chill in the fridge. 
Perfect on top of vanilla icecream or for breakfast added to a bowl of yoghurt and granola. 

You can also make this into gooseberry fool by gently folding the compote into whipped double cream - divine.

We didn't stop with the gooseberries either - stayed tuned for part 2 and a fantastic relish made from our purple beetroot.