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!




(This post contains affiliate links.  By clicking on the link, you help to support this blog and it is a way to say "thank you" for the information provided.)

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!

Update...

Thank you all for your patience as my blog as been very quiet as we adjust to life with a newborn and three year old!  It's a precious time, but exhausting!

I am so grateful that I was able to have another natural birth.  This birth was amazingly fast.  I had mild cramping for a few hours and then only 50 minutes of intense labor pains.  Our little girl was almost born on the side of the road.  Thankfully, my husband was amazing and kept cool and we made it to the birth center and I had her on a stretcher as I was wheeled into the room!  So, obviously, no pain meds and no interventions!  Yay!

Me with our precious daughter

My labor with my son had been much different, lasting 11 hours, with 3 hours of pushing.  I had a completely natural birth with him, as well.

I was very blessed to have the world's best doula with both my births.  Kayti actually is the reason that our little girl was not born on the side of the road.  I highly recommend hiring a doula to be present at your birth.  It was the best decision I have ever made.  My doula was amazing with both births and having her support really helped me have the natural birth experiences that I wanted and was also very helpful for my husband, as she was able to give him lots of tips before and during the births about how to best help me.

You can read more about doulas HERE.

I love hearing about natural, positive birth stories and hope that my story is an encouragement to any woman out there who is seeking to have a natural birth experience.

I find it sad that the US has a C-section rate of about 33%.  This is unacceptable and dangerous; the World Health Organization stating that a rate of 5-10% is acceptable.

There are so many things that you can do to help prevent C-sections and I hope to blog about these things in the coming months.

Thanks again for sticking with me through this "quiet" time!  Hope to be back to more regular blogging in the next weeks.

Please Join Us in Welcoming Our New Baby Girl!

This blog has been a bit quiet over the past few weeks and for good reason!  I am happy to announce the birth of our daughter almost 2 weeks ago.

We are thrilled with our little girl and I am quite busy adjusting to life again with a newborn.

Thank you in advance for understanding if posts are few and far between in the next few months ahead.

I do look forward to sharing some of my herbal brews and remedies and are greatly assisting in the healing process as I recover from the delivery (I did a completely natural birth again) and adjust to a newborn.

Einkorn Grain Cookies...

Let's face it!  Sometimes life just gets too busy to be able to cook everything ideally or to cook everything, period!

I am definitely in one of those seasons of life.  I try to chose the best alternatives and keep my eyes open for great options.

Photo Credit:  amazon.com

We have been in the potty training season for a little while with my son.  I have not had the time to bake little rewards for him, but was not super happy with the store cookies and crackers, even the organic ones, until we tried Jovial's Einkorn Grain Cookies.

I love these cookies for several reasons.  First being, they are not super sweet.  Made as a traditional European cookies, they are packed full of flavor, but low on sugar.  Second, they use einkorn grain.  You can read more about this heirloom grain HERE.  We have recently almost exclusively switched over to this grain as a family.  Third, they use organic palm oil, which I highly prefer over oils like canola and sunflower that are often used in organic processed foods.

While this has been a great "potty treat" for my son, I have to confess I've been enjoying them too!

(Disclaimer:  I am an affiliate for amazon.  Any use of the link here is a little "thank you" for the work I do to keep this blog running!)

Green Spring Cleaning Recipes...

My favorite place to buy all my herbs, Mountain Rose Herbs, has posted some fabulous green and healthy spring cleaners that you can make yourself.  I am looking forward to being able to whip some of these up myself.  You can look HERE for the recipes.

If you have never checked out Mountain Rose Herbs, be sure to do so!  They are my favorite place to buy almost all my herbal supplies!

(I am an affiliate for Mountain Rose Herbs.  I recommend only places that I personally buy from.  Using their link from my website helps to support this blog.  Thank you!)

Soaked Granola

 We are in a very busy season of life right now.  I'm always on the lookout for healthy, whole foods recipes that can be fast and used on busy mornings.  I found THIS RECIPE from Passionate Homemaking for soaked granola.  I've taken the basic bones of the recipe and adapted it to what supplies I have on hand.   It has come out delicious!  We can grab this in the mornings and have with raw milk or homemade yogurt and fresh fruit.

This granola has become such a hit in this house that I always double the recipe.  It makes a LOT, but I freeze it and the time I spend making it is more than paid for by having an easy breakfast my husband can grab on early mornings or when I just need a break.  I like the fact that I'm not having to stock the house with store bought granola (which is SO expensive!) or cereal.  Even the organic ones are full of rancid oils and additives that I prefer my family not be eating.

Here is my little helper, helping with the first stage (soaking) of the granola.  As you can see, I tried twice to get a real smile, but I guess these are a three year old's "real" smiles!

Making the granola is some work, but it is doable, as the recipe is broken into stages.  I have tweaked the recipe by drying my granola in my dehydrator (which can hold a double and even triple batch) and then using what I have around the house.  I like lots of nuts, seeds, and coconut in our granola, so I have doubled or tripled what the recipe calls for, keeping the dried fruits about the same.  Some things I have added to our granola are pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, sesame seeds, hazelnuts, raisins, and hemp.  One time I ran out of my raw honey (big bummer!), so I have subbed in some sucanat or increased the maple syrup.  With lots of extra seeds and nuts, this is a great source of proteins and healthy oils (especially since I use nuts that I have soaked and dried).  Would love to hear what kinds of things you would enjoy putting in your granola!

Crock-Pot Oatmeal

I wanted to share this recipe from my sister Christy, over at Whole Foods on a Budget.  Crock-pot oatmeal has recently become my "go-to" breakfast for Monday mornings.  Prepping the night before and having breakfast ready and waiting on Monday morning is such a treat and helps me get a good start on the week, in this busy season of life!


You can read the recipe HERE.  I have found that this makes enough for me, my husband, and three year old with enough left-overs to warm up with a little water on Tuesday morning, so it's actually two days that I don't have to do any breakfast prep.  To get 2 days worth out of the recipe, I have tweaked it just a bit for us:

*I do a heaping cup of oat groats, probably closer to 1 1/4 cups and therefore add about 1/2 cup extra water.
*I add three apples, chopped into bite-sized pieces and place them on the bottom of the crock-pot, along with 1/3 cup raisins.
*With the apples and raisins, I have found that we need no extra sweetener.
*I like to add walnuts or pumpkin seeds to the oatmeal AFTER it is done cooking and just before we eat it.
*Every crock-pot is different and I found my oatmeal sticking a lot, so I have found that if my husband starts it cooking around 11, it does not stick as much.  Also, placing the apples in the crock pot first and then putting the oats in has helped reduce sticking.
*I also like to soak my oats to reduce phytic acid, which inhibits mineral absorption.  To soak, I place the oat groats in a bowl and cover with water.  I add 1 T apple cider vinegar and then I let it soak 6-8 hours; which means I usually start soaking around 4 in the afternoon.

The Olive Curing is Done!

Better late than never!  I realized I forgot to post about my finished home-cured olives.  These were pretty easy, (though a bit time consuming), to do, and they came out absolutely delicious!  I bought my organic, raw olives from Chaffin Family Farms (who also sell all kinds of other yummy things!).  You can read my post HERE about how I salt cured my olives.

Above are my finished olives.  I rinsed the salt off and they have a delicious mildly salty taste unlike any olives you would find that have been lye brined.  I'm sold on salt brining olives and look forward to doing this again - maybe adding some herbs and spices to them next time around.

If you are new to curing olives, I would recommend starting with black olives and doing the salt cure.  It was a very easy process, great for beginners.

Below is some sourdough ciabatta I made with the olives - so good!

Sealogica Availability...

Due to some very busy months ahead, I am taking a temporary break from selling Sealogica and hope to resume around August.  I will take orders until the end of the week (maybe next week as well), so if you would like to order, this would be the time to do it.

Thanks and I hope you give it a try!

Onion Poultices

Have you ever used an onion poultice?  This used to be a "go to" by our great-grandmothers and their mothers before them, but with the advent of modern medicine, these valuable poultices were left behind.

I was happy to rediscover them about a year ago when my son had croup.  I used onion poultices on him and was very happy with the results.  They really helped with his congestion and cough.

Recently, I stumbled across THIS post by Bear Medicine Herbals all about onion poultices and onion syrups.  This is a keeper post for sure!  Kiva Rose, the author, is an amazing herbalist!  Check out her post HERE and give her recipes a try.

Photo Credit: eats.com

(Featured on the Prairie Homestead Blog Hop)