Violet Oxymel

Sweet violets are in full swing here on the farm! So far, I have made sweet violet tea, attempted to make sweet violet syrup, and have made two types of violet blossom vinegar. The success with the projects has varied somewhat; the sweet violet tea was surprisingly beautiful, and the vinegars are flavorful and visually stunning, but the syrup accidentally crystalized so I will have to revisit that project later.

The blossoms of purple violets do wonderful things when added to water or vinegar. Here's what they look like in hot water (on the left) and white vinegar (on the right):




I think that the violet infusion would be a lovely menu item for a brunch or tea party (everyone should have tea parties, don't laugh!), and the white vinegar would be very nice for salad dressings or maybe even pickled eggs. Pink like beets, but floral instead of earthy? Yes, please.





But I think the real gem of my violet experiments thus far is Violet Oxymel.

Oxymel is a complicated word for a simple concept: vinegar + honey = oxymel. As a general rule, oxymels are soothing for coughs and sore throats, and a lovely digestive tonic before or after a meal.  They can either be enjoyed by the spoonful without dilution (deliciously sweet and sour), or stirred into a glass of warm or cold water. By infusing the vinegar with different herbs, a rather lively assortment of oxymels can be created. In this case, I used apple cider vinegar, violet blossoms, and local honey.

To make the infused vinegar, use a 1:1 ratio of violets and vinegar. In this case, I used a cup of each. After allowing the blossoms to steep in the vinegar for a week, strain the vinegar through a fine mesh sieve to remove the flowers. The apple cider vinegar won't display as much of a shocking color change, but it definitely takes on a reddish hue.

The ratio of honey to infused vinegar is up to you, but a quarter cup of honey for every cup of vinegar is a good place to start. More honey can always be added if you would prefer that it be sweeter.

Stir the honey into the vinegar. It will usually take a minute or two for the ingredients to mix, so don't worry if the honey seems to clump together at the bottom.

Once the honey has dissolved completely into the vinegar, the oxymel is ready to use!  As a beverage, violet oxymel is especially refreshing  over ice, but tt makes a nice flavored water at room temperature, too. 
  

Other Tips for making Violet Oxymel:

• Use a layer of parchment paper under the lid if you are infusing the violets and vinegar in a canning jar. The vinegar will have a reaction with the metal in the lids and could drip nasty black oxidation into the infusing vinegar. Not tasty! Glass containers with non-reactive lids are definitely better if you have them. 
• Pick violets around noon on a dry, sunny day. The fragrance of the flowers will be at its strongest under these conditions.
• Don't feel bad about picking all the blossoms you need. The purple flowers are just for show- they almost never set seeds! Violets grow a second set of tiny, green flowers in the fall that set seed prolifically. The violets will usually respond to harvesting by producing a second crop of purple flowers, so there will be plenty more in a few days anyway.   
• Use just the blossoms- you don't need the stems. 

Historical Background of Viola odorata

Sweet Violet, Viola odorata, is native to Europe but is very common through out much of the united states. It often grows in lawns and along woodland edges, although it can be hard to spot at first because of its small size. Violet has several properties that merit consideration for household use, especially because it is found so widely in backyards and vacant lots.

There are several culinary uses for Viola odorata. First, the above ground parts are edible. The young leaves can be used as a salad green or lightly steamed much like spinach, while the flowers can be candied, enjoyed as a fragrant tea, or used as a beautiful addition to salads. Violet syrup, also made from the blossoms, is a unique flavoring for desserts and beverages. 

Beyond culinary uses, violet has a historical reputation for being expectorant, ant-inflammatory, diuretic, and alterative.The underground portions of violet should be used with caution if at all, as they have a reputation for being a a very strong purgative and emetic. The leaves and flowers, however, are gentle and mild enough that they were commonly given to children. As a children's herb, Violet was often used to encourage regular bowel movements or to soothe fevers.

Herbal Honeys

Winter doesn't suit me. I get fretful and anxious, and tend to only want to do two things: read and sleep. Well, I suppose you could also add a few other things to that list: 3.) cuddle (cats, humans, extra quilts, whatever-I'm equal opportunity) and 4.) drink copious amounts of hot tea. Everything else is a dreadful inconvenience. This year things certainly weren't helped by a hefty dollop of grief and more pressure than usual to keep up the frenetic pace I manage for most of the rest of the year. Finally, I blew off everything and nosed around in my herb cabinet in a sulky mood until I found some ingredients that captured my fancy. Combining them with my adoration of all things hot and beverage-y, I came up with three herbal honeys that can either be stirred into water to make an instant tea, used to sweeten less palatable herbal brews, or to add another dimension to already yummy infusions.

The time to play left me in a much better mood.

Herbal honeys need about two weeks to mature, so that the flavors develop. It's been about a month since I made these, so they have had plenty of time for the flavors to meld.

The two I have been using the most are the Turmeric/Long Pepper/Black Pepper spice blend (I like to add it to other teas when I feel a scratchy throat and sinus woes forthcoming) and also the Ginger/Sage/Astragalus immune friendly blend. The Hibiscus/Rose/Lemon Balm one hasn't come out to play much just yet, but I planned it as a tasty vitamin c treat. The fourth one is an Angelica/Lavender/Rose Petal nervine. I think I might save the recipes for another post, but I am pleased that they turned out very pretty as well as delicious. Or maybe that's just me adoring the presentation of anything in tiny jelly jars?

Quick and Easy Elderberry Syrup

Elderberry is a great syrup to have on hand. It has a pleasant taste, and is traditionally used to support the immune system during cold and flu season. July isn't exactly cold and flu season, but fresh elderberries will be ripening soon, so this is the time of year to start thinking about making syrup.

If you have access to fresh elderberries, you can usually boil them down with only a little extra water and the end result will be a very strong juice that makes an excellent syrup. If you only have dried berries, though, the process is a little different. I chose to use dried berries because they are very inexpensive and easily available, and they still make a very nice syrup. 

Elderberry syrup can be enjoyed by the spoonful or stirred into a glass of sparkling water, or as a flavored syrup on pancakes, ice cream or whatever strikes your fancy. 

Ingredients:
1/4 cup dried elderberries
1 cup distilled water
1 cup honey (preferably raw)

Supplies:
Non reactive saucepan with lid
Fine mesh strainer
Large glass measuring cup
Glass Jar
Metal Spoon

Place elderberries and water into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, cover with lid and let stand for ten minutes.

Place mesh stainer over the large glass measuring cup and pour berries and juice into the strainer. Use the back of the spoon to press berries against the strainer until most of the juice has been removed and the berries are mostly dry. Discard the mashed berries, and return the juice to the saucepan.

Add the honey to the juice and return the pan to low heat. Stir constantly until the honey and juice are completely mixed. This doesn't take long, only about 30 seconds or so.

Pour into the glass jar and cap tightly, label and date. Store in the refrigerator.

According to Richo Cech in his book Making Plant Medicine, an herbal syrup made with these proportions (1 part by volume of strong herbal decoction or infusion to 2 parts by volume of Honey) can have an expected shelf life of one year if sterilized glass jars are used.

My syrup yielded about 10 oz for less than $5.00. I found twelve ounces of local honey for around four dollars at a farmer's market, and found four ounces of dried elderberries online for $3.50. The bag of elderberries I bought had about two cups worth of dried berries to play with, so I still have enough berries for three more batches of syrup.

To compare, leading brands of elderberry syrup at my neighborhood health food store can cost as much as $20 for 3oz! 

Tulip Tree Bits!

Mother's Day Sunday was rather soggy here. But that didn't stop me from wandering around the garden with my mom as she showed me all of her latest lovelies. I bought her a foam flower a few years ago for a problem shady spot she was trying to coax to life, and between that and all of her hostas and hellebores she has a magnificent little hideaway going now. On the sunny side of things, her butterfly weed, stoke's aster and passionflower are gorgeous, and the gardenias are absolute show stoppers this year.

She knows that I have been wanting some tulip tree branches, but the storms so far haven't brought down any limbs. So, after our garden tour, she provided me with the long handled garden shears and pointed out where the trees in the back yard have some low-hanging branches.

My herbal escapades are generally a source of interest and amusement within our family, and Sunday was no different. My brother appeared in short order, to enquire if I was gnawing on the shrubberies again. He gamely chewed on the twig I handed him, and agreed with me that it smells nice but tastes a little bitter. My dad came outside, in time to observe my brother making faces. He declined my offer of a twig of his own. . .

I chose a branch that was crossing over some of the other branches. I figured if I was going to be a pest and take a branch rather than wait for a windfall, the least I could do was select one that could potentially cause problems later on if left to its own devices.

Then I broke the branch down into manageable pieces and brought it home.

Once home, I stripped the bark from the twigs. The inner bark slides off very easily if you choose the right time of year (spring is good) and then it's just a matter of separating the rough outer bark from the inner.

Green/yellow inner bark and brown outer bark.

The outer bark is basically dead cells that protect the active inner bark (think skin on top of blood vessels in human terms) so I didn't worry too much about stripping it all off. A veggie peeler works really well for this step.

Inner bark after using the vegetable peeler.

 Then I shredded the bark a little finer, and snipped it into shorter pieces with kitchen shears.

Next, the bark bits went into a jar with some vodka. I didn't realize I was almost out of vodka, but I had enough to cover the bark. Looks like just enough. . .

The larger portions of the branch yielded thicker and juicier bark.

 The eclectics used either alcohol or cold water preparations of liriodendron- they believed hot water preparations destroyed the useful constituents of the herb, so vodka should make a nice extract.

Two minutes in the menstruum and already taking on the principles of the herb.

Mmmmm, Tulip Tree bits! Time to go do some more research and take a look at the amount the Eclectics used in any given case. Most modern herbalists use 15-30 drops of an extract up to several times a day for an adult, but it really depends on the person and the herb. . .

Chickweed and Cleavers

If you need your garden weeded, ask an herbalist. If they are anything like me, they will be happy to grub everything out of your garden that you don't want. . .as long as they can keep it!

After weeding a friends garden, I came home with loads of chickweed and cleavers and needed a quick way to preserve them. Both make pretty tasty greens - chickweed is excellent raw, cleavers is better if you steam it- but I wanted to make them husband-friendly. Especially as I brought them home pretty much specifically for him and his stubborn skin problems.

Chickweed

Both herbs have a high water content when fresh, so I didn't want to use vodka for extracts like I would with the dried versions.

Cleavers

I settled on pulling out my blender, adding water, and pressing  out the juice from the resulting mash.

Life is short- Make Messes!

Cleavers, Left. Chickweed, Right.

 Then I used ice cube trays to throw everything in the freezer.

He takes a cube out and melts it in a cup of water as he needs them, and so far this has worked great. I think it helps that I also used the fish-shaped ice cube trays.

Fishes, my Precious!

Herbal Sprinkle Blends

My hubby gave me some cute owl salt and pepper shakers for valentines day. I decided to fill them with herbal sprinkle blends from The Herbal Kitchen by Kami McBride.

Here they are with the adorable frog Sumac shaker that also graces my kitchen counter. Aren't they adorable?

The blue owl has the Peppermill Blend (juniper, coriander and black peppercorns).

The pink owl has the Red Powder blend (Rose hips, Hawthorn, and rosepetals, sans the orange peel called for in the original recipe because I didn't have any.)

Having some interesting spice blends on hand makes even our last-minute, thrown together meals much more exciting. I love the Peppermill Blend on red lentils, and the Red Powder Blend is really nice on scrambled eggs.

Herbal Mischief Reading List

So, last month I wrote a little post about all the herbal mischief I am planning for this year. Part of that post referred to a reading list I was putting together. Here it is! My reading list for the year:

Herbalism in America (excluding Native traditions, which I would like to focus on next year)

The Practice of Traditional Western Herbalism, by Matthew Woods
Medical Protestants: The Eclectics in American Medicine, by John S Haller
The People's Doctor: Samuel Thomson and the American Botanical Movement, by John S. Haller
and possibly
Kindly Medicine: physio-medicalism in America, by John S. Haller

I wish I could find a few other authors as well, but this will be a good start.

Herbals and European Herbal History
Medieval Herbals: the Illustrative Traditions, by Minta Collins
The Old English Herbals, by Eleanour Sinclair Rhode
Herbals: their origin and evolution, by Agnes Arber

And I would like to at least browse through the following:

Gerard's Herbal, by John Gerard
Culpeper's Complete Herbal, by Nicholas Culpeper
A modern herbal, by Maude Grieve

I think I will probably purchase them one or two at a time, some of them are a bit on the pricey side. Well, at least for me, the expert at dredging up $2.oo herbal books at the local used bookshops :) 

Herbal Mischief for the New Year!

I have lots of incredible herbal mischief planned for the next few months! I want to 'play with my herbs' this year, rather than focus only on the theory and science side of things. However, I'd still like an overall focus or theme for what I'm doing. So, this year, my themes are Historical Herbalism and The Herbal Household. My free time will be full of the two things I like best: reading; and cramming my little condo full of useful, delightful, herbal creations.

As far as Historical Herbalism goes, I am very interested in the history of herbalism in the west, especially from the middle ages onward. I would love to focus on the herbalism of Britain and North America during that time span. In general, I would like to gain an overall picture of the ways herbalism has changed over time, and brush up on important names and dates. Still need to do some initial research, but should be putting together a tentative reading list over the next week or so. Also picking out which herbs I would like to study in depth this year alongside western herbalism. 

One of the things I would like to do with the Herbal Household theme is: Eat More Herbs! There is quite a collection of intriguing recipes in my herbal notebook, and a rather large portion of my kitchen is being overtaken by interesting oils, vinegars, herbal sprinkles, and teas. I would like to add herbal motifs to my home decorating and wardrobe, too, which is going to be even  more fun!

The Apothecary got inventoried today, so I can put together a shopping list for the ingredients needed in my culinary experiments and replenish my herbal must-haves. There is something immensely satisfying about opening up my herbal cupboard and having plenty of supplies to play with whenever the mood strikes. . .

A shelf or two in my cabinet of curiosities. .

"Geez lady, you and your dried plants!
You know you should be feeding me, right?"

I think it's going to be a very entertaining and exciting year here at the Indie Herbalist!

Fire Cider

It seems that my friends are passing around the creeping cruddies this year with abandon. So far, I have not fallen prey to their, um . . . generosity. Still, better safe than sorry. So today, in order to supplement my herbal bag of tricks, I made Fire Cider.

Fire Cider is a vinegar based concoction full of immune and circulation boosting roots. The main ingredients are fresh horseradish and ginger roots, onion, garlic cloves and apple cider vinegar. Honey can be used to sweeten it, and I have seen variations using citrus to temper the flavor.

This will be my first time trying it, so I have no idea what the flavor will be like, but it seems appropriate as I am currently fascinated by vinegar and herbal preparations which make use of it. And besides, I like all of the above ingredients on their own, so why not?

Making Fire Cider is very simple:

1. Peel the horseradish and ginger, and either slice thin or julienne. I found a mandoline slicer to be very useful on the ginger, but I just cut the horseradish into matchsticks. Chop the onion into small pieces, and smash the garlic cloves.

2. Put ingredients in a glass jar, and add the apple cider vinegar to cover the other ingredients.

3. Screw on the lid, and place in a kitchen cabinet for at least two weeks.

4. Strain, and commence flavor tempering with honey, citrus, etc.

Fire Cider can be used as a condiment and as a tonic in shot glass servings. As a tonic beverage, it can either be undiluted (that makes me think painful thoughts, though!) or, as I am planning, mixed with orange juice as a sipping beverage. Sort of like a really spicy winter shrub.

Other tips:

Your hands will be quite smelly after all the garlic and horseradish, but availing yourself of some stainless steel (spoons, sinks, measuring cups) will help to cut the smell. Simply rub your hands with the stainless and the odor will magically abate!

Herbs can be added as well. Cayenne is a popular choice, but I hate cayenne so I left it out. Instead, I added some dried thyme and a few leaves of fresh sage. 

Fire Cider around the interwebs:

Rosemary Gladstar's Recipe
Over at the From Scratch Club

Rehmannia, Astragalus, Agrimony

Sounds like a bizarre incantation, but, along with Prickly Ash, Blue Vervain, and White Peony,  it refers to this:

My latest extracting endeavors.

The minimum time for extracts is two weeks, but it can be interesting to play with longer time frames. My extracts usually sit for about three months before I remember to strain them out and bottle them. Some have even set for as long as six months (a valerian extract of the six month variety is one of my favorite creations). I guess it's a case of out of sight, out of mind - I store them in an otherwise ignored cabinet while they are doing their thing. 

Notice, they are labeled. Labeling is important, especially if you work with more than one herb at a time, blends, or letting them brew for longer time periods. Besides the names of the ingredients, I like to add the date I started the extracts. Once they are poured off, I will enter the start date and press date along with the name of the herb and source of materials into my herbal log book. 

There isn't any particular significance to the herbs pictured. They are some I am interested in, and some that I thought would be useful, some that a friend needed, and some that I wanted to experiment with.   

I'm really looking forward to pouring these off, as I like to compare tastes, aromas, and color nuances between herbs when it's time to bottle. Making the comparisons and having the contrasts helps me get a better feel for identifying each herb. If I have identical herbs from a previous batch on hand, (say, from remaking when I began to run low, or a store bought preparation) I will also compare apples to apples.