More Fresh Herbal Honeys!

With all the raw honey I just bought and the fresh herbs growing in our yard, I could not resist putting up some fresh herbal honeys today.

My son and I made four kinds: rosemary, lavender, applemint, and spearmint.  We loosely filled our jars with our herbs (you can chop them if you like), then poured the honey over the herbs.

My very happy helper!

We used some glass stirrers to poke the herbs down in the honey and help remove as many of the air bubbles as we could.  We then topped the jars off with more honey.

The jars were then labeled and capped and will sit out 2-6 weeks in a sunny window.  These will disappear fast, I know, but these fresh honeys will not keep as long as ones made with dried herbs.  

The leftover mint was placed in a jar and set out in the sun today - mint tea tonight!  Yum!

Herbal Honeys...

I just bought 50 pounds of raw honey.  It's lovely and so delicious and goes quickly in this house!  I am having fun trying all kinds of herbal honey concoctions and made lavender infused honey and garlic honey this morning.  (Click on the lavender infused honey and it will take you to a video by Mountain Rose Herbs on how to make this honey.)

The lavender honey will be lovely in the evenings in a nice cup of tea, infusing it's relaxing qualities and helping to promote a good night of sleep (not that I have that right now with an 8 week old!)  You can find dried lavender flowers at Mountain Rose Herbs, where I buy almost all my herbs.

The garlic honey I will keep on hand as a tonic, for times we get sick, and to use on wounds or bug bites.  The shelf life is about 3 months for this honey.

The recipe for the garlic honey came from a lovely little used book I got off of amazon called Herbal Remedies by Hedley.  I really like it because the remedies listed are easy to make, straight forward, diverse, and has great step by step pictures.  This book is no longer in print, but you can get a copy for about $5 used on amazon right now.  Snatch one up!  You can find it HERE!




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Pesto

Our new little arrival is almost 7 weeks!  Time is flying by and I am finally getting to the point where I can do a little more these days.  Today, I am making a big batch of pesto from loads of basil we got over the past week from our local CSA.

We love pesto.  I enjoy adding other greens to our pestos.  Today, I am adding some cilantro and parsley.  Cilantro is an excellent detoxing green and I love to use it fresh, especially in salads and pestos.  Parsley is an excellent source of minerals.  These both add a delicious taste to pestos and I'm looking forward to enjoying ours this weekend.

A few other greens I have added are arugula, radish greens, and mitzuna.  Have some fun experimenting with different greens to come up with some fresh zippy pestos you and your family can enjoy!