Memory of Water....Herbal Cordials

Better then ice cream on a hot summers day….I’ve discovered frozen lemon slices, soaked in Elder Flower Cordial…..yes, I’ve done it now. This is my new passion! So, even though some of those hot hazy (is this really Ireland?) days are now behind us, little weekend summer treats are not…..

I have made a few bottles of cordial – sold out my Elderflower cordial at the market stall, but will have some other summer flavours – which we have enjoyed to the full over these past few weeks. They are endlessly versatile….

I have been doing the traditional summer treat by putting a splash of cordial into still or sparkling water for a quick refreshing drink. But, I find myself using them more and more… a friend adds a healthy portion to his homemade apple cider….the Elderflower as well as my Lemon Verbena & Orange cordials are also great (the word here is decadent!) spooned over vanilla ice cream or added to cakes and buns.

A chilled glass of homemade dandelion wine gets a boost with some cordial of any kind and there is nothing like Mint & Thyme cordial to pick up your mood as well as the immune function. Almost any recipe can be transformed with few spoonful of this herbal elixir – the combinations are practically endless. 

Of course….my favourite part is that I get to make a delicious drink with the awesome energy of nature built into every drop. This healing vibrational signature and goodness is sealed into the memory of water when each herb is worked with in the most gentle way.

Summer is all about nature inside and out!

April

Whey To Go! More Adventures in Cheese Making

This week I am making cheese…..I have some cows milk and goat’s milk so I wanted to try my hand at more of my favourite cheese in the world – Feta. It is just the absolute best as far as I am concerned both for it’s taste and versatility.

I find I can use feta in nearly anything – and it improves the texture, taste, and overall appeal of any dish. From salads in the summer (doesn’t feta remind you of summer!) to warm vegetable pie bakes in the winter. Lovely.

So, with this in mind I wanted to make a sizable amount of cheese for us to enjoy in the coming week. (For me here, that means a bowl full LOL) Of course, getting a bowlful of cheese means using several liters of milk…..

And this means lots of whey left over at the end of the process of cheese making…..I never throw out something good – it just gets made into more food and fed to everyone.

To make feta, for those who are interested - it's quite straight forward. Using clean pots, thermometer and utensils - I gently heat the milk (this time 6 liters) to about 86 F. Then add in the starter culture (tiny quantities) - as much as possible I keep the temp around this mark for the next hour or so.

Then, I add a tiny amount of rennet (I use raw milk for cheese so a little goes a long way) stir and let this sit for another 30 to 40 minutes (with some warmth if I can) until curds are starting to form. Once the curds are forming and I get a clean break with a knife - I start cutting, slicing and otherwise gently lifting the curds to encourage more whey to come out.

This might take a little while....then the curds are moved to a muslin cloth to be strained for several hours or overnight (up to 24 hours depending on your tastes). Once out of the cloth the cheese is cut further into cubes, salted (and herbed in my case) and placed in the fridge for a couple of days. 

This entire endeavour produces a large amount of whey......

With this large pot of leftover whey, this week I made a few loaves of sourdough bread – one batch with cinnamon and one plain. I also decided to cook a large pot of basmati rice in whey (it is very tasty) as well as do a little spicy carrot & lentil stew….

Some of the whey went into animal feeds as well. Whey is a great source of protein, I would consider it similar to a tonic and a strengthening food. When it is used in cooking (such as the lentil stew) it adds a tangy flavour like nothing else – as if your stew had melted cheese in it.

Yum!

Finding uses for byproducts of making our food from scratch is part of the fun (and challenge) of using innovation and resourcefulness to it’s maximum. Yet….it’s all been done before!

Enjoy your day out there,

April

Curds and Whey

Nature's Magic….Elder Flower Cordial, Champagne & Elder Lemonade!

Herbs are natures’ gift to us – they are the ultimate healer, delightful food and in complete harmony with our body’s needs. They are perfectly balanced and practical, in every way. A herb knows what to do within your body, and your body knows how to use the herb what ever the needs may be….

Of course there are so many to choose from….but really, we only need to be familiar with a few that grow locally around us during the various seasons and we can work with these to our hearts delight for healing and many wonderful seasonal eats.

Right now we are nearing the end of the elder flowers….many of these mythical trees have bloomed already and are well on their way to become the berries I look forward to each year. But, I love the blossoms too and look forward to them like nothing else.

The energy of the elder is quite something – it’s is different from anything else in the forest with a quality unlike other energy forms. An elder tree is a guardian, rooted and standing in place – willing to anchor and connect mortal time to eternity.

With this in mind (yikes!) each summer I pick a few elder blossoms to make our cordial and of course to dry for my herbal teas. In years past, I have tried making cordial without using sugar, replacing it with honey or apple concentrate to varying results.

But this year, with my newly 'healed and sealed' gut (after doing the mother of all cleanses/fasts/detoxes for the last 2 or 3 years) – I decided to try making my cordial with sugar, this time around, using a very traditional recipe…..

Basically, I took about 30 heads of elder flowers (a large bunch) washed them off under gently running water to get any bugs. In the meantime I boiled about 3 liters of well water and grated 4 organic lemons to get the zest, then I sliced them thinly.

Once the water was hot, I poured in about 2kg of sugar and stirred until it was dissolved and allowed this to sit about 10 minutes or so. Then I added the lemon zest and the thinly sliced lemons – it was smelling lovely already!

Last – the magic ingredient, all of those elder flower heads went into the big pot – this was stirred very gently and left loosely covered overnight. These old recipes often have varying lengths of time for leaving this concoction to steep, but I like longer time if possible. So I leave it for at least 24 hours or so.

Then, the liquid is strained off through a muslin cloth and placed into clean bottles….in a couple of weeks I will taste each of my batches….but I do remember from my childhood that we were still drinking elder cordial well up into Easter the following year!

This makes a thickish syrup which is great diluted with fizzy water, wine or fruit juice. Nothing else smells like summer to me, then when the house is full of elder flowers (right now I have cordials brewing and flowers drying as well)!

So far, so good - bring on summer!

April

This Much I Know.....Food, Health and Healing

No, thanks, I can’t eat/drink/use that very natural good for you food – it might interfere with my medication….I thought I had heard it all…but to steer clear from ‘health’ because your medication is far more important is really interesting – well, it is for me anyway….and I will tell you why.

Many years ago – I was on a path that was taking me nowhere. I had a fairly good diet, lived close to nature, raised my own food as much as possible….used some herbal medicines…but I kept fooling myself that it was enough.

I could use the ‘medical system’ when it suited me, dabble in herbal medicine and otherwise remain healthy as I was. Boy was I wrong! I found out there is nothing healthy about taking any kind of drug – in fact, it interferes with and causes far more issues then it ever solves.

I spent years thinking I could take the best from both worlds. Well, duh! You can’t take the best from both worlds when there isn’t a ‘best’ in one of them. Chemicals, synthetic substances and drugs are not ‘medicine’ – they don’t cure or restore health.

The only mask the symptoms, push down and otherwise interfere with any healing our bodies are trying to do. And this is a dangerous game to be playing as well…removing symptoms is like asking your body to stop talking.

So that you can stop listening…..

It’s quite a situation to be in actually – there is nothing normal, natural or healthy about using any kind of chemical, drug or synthetic hormone. We will only end up with far more problems then we started with.

Only food, water, exercise, stress reduction and creating a healthy environment can achieve any kind of thorough, lasting, deep healing of the body, mind and soul. Ask me how I know….

April

Our Muscovy drake...