Hawthorn!

My dried hawthorn berries came in the mail today, so natch, I put some in jars. The berries were smaller than I expected and had a forest-like, woody smell to them. I put up a Qt of  tincture which should last me and my man quite some time.

Then I decided to make some hawthorn syrup. I put about a cup of berries in 3 C water and set them to boil then turned them down to a simmer

As the berries were simmering away Kevin called to me from the other room," The neighbors must be smoking weed on their porch!" Then he came into the kitchen to see what I was up to and walked past the stove and exclaimed," So that's what it is. I should have known." I must admit that the simmering hawthorn berries did smell a tich canabinal. After the liquid had reduced by what I thought was half I strained the liquid into a measuring cup to find it had reduced to 6oz. Oops. Oh well, no real harm done. I then added 2 oz by weight of Swerve sweetener. Ok, take a deep breath here. I know Swerve is not "Natural" and most will object to it's addition to a herbal remedy. But I am diabetic and can't use Honey, white sugar, agave or coconut sugar without serious damage to my blood sugar control. I have tried Stevia and while I find it has some good uses in tea and less concentrated applications, I LOTHE the bitter aftertaste stevia has when used in quantity. I'm talking using the dried leaf, not the white powder which I think tastes even worse. For most of my sweetening needs I have used liquid sucralose since I need only 1 drop for most applications therefore limiting my ingestion to a small amount. But for a syrup I needed quite a bit. Swerve is a newer sweetener made from ogliosaccharides and erythritol, a sugar alcohol that does not cause gastric distress and has very little impact on blood sugar. If I could I would use honey. But I can't so this is what I choose to use.

 The finished syrup tastes pretty good. It's not something I'd want to pour all over my pancakes( which, by the way, I can't eat) but to take as a tonic by the spoonful nightly it is quite pleasant. This is an experiment, we shall see if the Swerve has any preservative qualities like sugar and honey do at syrup strength.

So, why did I do all this? Because Hawthorn berries are quite a nice cardio tonic and nourishing herb. My heart has been doing it's thing for more than 51 years now and a little assistance from Hawthorn might just help it keep on keepin' on for  51 more.  A member of my household has elevated blood pressure and Hawthorn has been known to help folks gently lower their blood pressure. Here is a nice little write up on Sister Hawthorn from my mentor Susun Weed:Hawthorn 

 I bought my Hawthorn from :Mountain Rose Herbs

and for those of you interested in finding more about Swerve and it's use as a sweetener for those who must limit glycemic impact look here :Swerve

Elderflower

I went on a edible plant walk today. It was so lovely. It rained a little but just enough to keep the heat from being oppressive. I got to see several old plant friends and met a few new ones like white mulberry. The berries are a cream white color and in my opinion much tastier than the purple berries. There were several other plants that fell into the Could eat category but not quite want to eat category. But who to my surprise did I see? ELDER! In the 15 years I've been here I have not found Elder anywhere in Dallas. I just needed a little help to find her. It never hurts to ask for help.

Elder has multiple umbels on it's flower head and the flowerhead above was so perfect I didn't want to harvest it so I looked for more. When I found another cache of elder I took only 3 small umbels from one plant because the whole flowerhead was not totally open and I thought that the 3 I got were enough for a small mason jar. I really don't want to harvest more than I need.

 I took the flowers home and put them in a small jar and covered them with 50% alcohol. I'm not sure yet if this will be an Elder tincture or Elder cordial.

If I leave it as a tincture it will grace me with it's fever lowering abilities. I know of this ability. WebMd mentions that elder has blood sugar lowering abilities. I don't know about this but I am going to find out more on that. If I decide to make this into a cordial it will be a low carb version of the delightful and subtle St. Germain liqueur:St. Germain. Stay tuned to see how this turns out.

Fruit in jars!

Today I saw some peaches at Albertsons that looked and smelled nice. Did I buy them for a pie? Of course not! I put that shit in jars! I think that I'm going to try brandy and peach for a batch when the local peaches come in. Anyway here is my fruit haul in all it's boozy glory.

Cordials!

Cordials are a curious thing. They remind me of Victorian parlors and cut lead class vessels holding all manner of liquid delights. I don't know why I think of them as old fashioned but I do. They are a sipping drink, a slow drink ment to be savored in small quantity. And with the price of most commercial cordials I can see why. Cordials pack a hefty punch to the wallet.
 Wait a minute, you don't know what a cordial is? Let me tell you. A cordial is a sweetened liquor made most often from fruits, aromatic flowers or herbs that is sipped in small quantities as a digestif or just a saut de langue (I just made that up). They are often made with neutral spirits but can be made with Brandy or even rum or tequila. Once in a while a cordial may even have medicinal properties but most often they are just to delight the tongue.
 I got inspired at the grocery store the other day when I saw this beautiful rhubarb in the produce section. I never grew up eating rhubarb and it is too hot to grow it here in Dallas so I am not too familiar with it but I know it is tart. The stalks at the store were a beautiful red hue and very crisp looking so I bought a few and decided that a tart, sweet cordial might be a fun thing to try. I cut them up to expose more surface area and made a standard tincture from them.( I covered the almost full quart jar with 50% Everclear 50% water to make an almost 100 proof solution)  Then I let the tincture sit for a week. I did the same thing in a different jar with strawberries which were on sale at the store.

I did an experiment where I put a small batch of strawberries in straight Everclear to see if I could taste the difference in infusion techniques. I would think that the Everclear would pull more liquid from the fruit and give a deeper fruity taste after dilution to 100 proof but I'm not sure if there will be a difference between infusing in 100 Proof or 200 Proof. We shall see. At any rate, I saw that the Everclear batch was blanched out and the liquid was a very pretty red so I decided to decant that batch and dilute it. It smelled nicely of strawberries but was kind of harsh. Then I remembered that strawberry and rhubarb are often cooked together and this pretty baby was born.

Oh, what a delight this was! A Strawberry and Rhubarb Cordial! Sweet and tart at the same time. And a very pretty pink to boot! As I am diabetic I needed to avoid using sucrose to sweeten this, and it did need sweetening to bring up the strawberry flavor so I used only one drop of liquid sucralose.  The first sip was extraordinary. But then I got to thinking. I like my lemoncello straight from the freezer, perhaps this would be good cold. I added an ice cube and Voilá, perfection. The one drop of liquid sucralose was just enough sweetening without a bitter aftertaste and the ice made the rhubarb flavor pop. Of course, if you are not watching your sugar intake you can sweeten this with a simple syrup made from sugar and water in a 1:1 ratio boiled until disolved. I am very happy with this combination. After this sits for a month to mellow the Everclear this cordial combo should be sublime. I am so happy with this that I may make up more strawberry "tincture" and then use that to make up a medicinal tincture that tastes good, like Echinacea in strawberry.

STRAWBERRY RHUBARB CORDIAL
2T Strawberry vodka 100 proof
1T Rhubarb vodka 100 Proof
1 Dr. liquid sucralose

Herb Classes in Dallas!

Herb Classes in Dallas!
 Hey there DFW folks. I'd like to announce my summer herbal classes for 2014.
Herbal Medicine Series

7 June It's only Natural! Herbalism 101

14 June Herbal First aid for Life's hard knocks

21 June Achoo! Herbs for Colds ad minor illness

28 June What do Women Want? Herbs for Women

5 July Making Herbal Medicines $40

12 The Beauty of Nature, Skincare and Herbs

19 July Booze you can Use: Elixirs, cordials and other Spirited delights -suggested donation $ 25

all classes $35 12-2pm

location in East Dallas, exact location will be given upon pmnt

 These classes will be a fun, engaging introduction to the world of herbal medicine and health in the Wise Woman Tradition. Come on out and you too could have your very own stash of stuff in jars!

My latest creations are sitting in jars now, waiting to be decanted and enjoyed by my family and friends. I've made both tinctures and oils. My tinctures use dried plants of Yarrow and Damiana leaf and Milk Thistle Seed Powder. I usually don't like to buy pre powered herbs but I don't have a grinder powerful enough to grind milk thistle seeds and I've tried to make tincture from whole milk thistle and have been less than impressed with the results. I like the pre ground herb tincture better. Anyway, here is a pix of today's(yesterday's) creations. These things will be shown at my classes in June.

 Here are some oils I made, fresh rose petal oil and dried burdock root oil

and here is a photo of a failure. I tried to make dandelion root vinegar out of dried roots and I used too much root and it swelled up and sucked up most of the vinegar. I usually use about 1/3 jar of dried roots when I make vinegar and this time I may have used too much. Also it is hard to judge just how much the roots will swell in the vinegar. Oh well. Lesson learned here, I'll make another batch and squeeze this batch into it. No real harm done.

Roses Supposes.

This is my Rosie goodness harvested from the rose bush on the side of my house. We have rose vinegar, rose glycerite, rose tincture, rose honey and rose witch  hazel.

I can hardly wait the 6 weeks needed for this all to steep.