How to Make Medicinal Vinegars & Oxymels Medicinal vinegars (Vinegar Extracts) have been around since ancient times, and were an excellent way to preserve and dispense herbs before distilled spirits were known about. While the advantages of using vodka or brandy to make your herbal tinctures are many – including greater potency and longer shelf life, there are those who wish to avoid alcohol for personal reasons or due to the higher cost, making vinegar extracts ideal for them to create. Vinegar extracts (also known as “aceta”) are weaker than alcohol based tinctures, so the required dose is higher. And, while vinegar won’t draw out as many of the beneficial components of an herb that alcohol will, it does excel at drawing minerals and vitamins from a plant. Add those extra nutrients to the already established benefits of apple cider vinegar and you have a very acceptable option for your herbal remedies toolbox. Making a Vinegar Extract: According to my well loved book, Making Plant Medicine Dosing a Vinegar Extract:
How to Fix (or Remake) Jam or Jelly That Turns Out Too Soft or Runny How to Fix (or Remake) Jam or Jelly That Turns Out Too Soft or Runny This month's notes: April 2014: Spring is just around the corner. Strawberries are here in Florida, Texas and California, next in late March and April for much of the South, then in May for most of the country and June in cooler northern areas. See how easy it is to make strawberry jam or strawberry-rhubarb jam! Organic farms are identified in green! Subscribe to our: Email alerts; Follow us on Twitter Add this page to your favorites! Sometimes after you have canned your jam, jelly or other preserves and let it cool, you open a jar, only to find it hasn't set properly an d is too runny! If the jam is too thick, before you put it in the jars, just heat 1 or 2 cups of grape juice (or any other fruit juice of similar or neutral taste, like apple or white grape) to boiling. If the jars are already sealed / canned, then when you use them, just stir in a little grape juice until you reach the desired thickness. Ingredients
How to make homemade canned tomato paste, from fresh tomatoes - easy and illustrated! How to make homemade canned tomato paste, from fresh tomatoes - easy and illustrated! This month's notes: April 2014: Spring is just around the corner. Strawberries are here in Florida, Texas and California, next in late March and April for much of the South, then in May for most of the country and June in cooler northern areas. Organic farms are identified in green! Subscribe to our: Email alerts; Follow us on Twitter Add this page to your favorites! Click here for a PDF print version Yield: About 9 half-pint jars Making canned tomato paste is something easy to do and will make your tomato dishes taste so much better. Here's how to do it, in easy steps and completely illustrated. And if you'd rather can your tomatoes or freeze your tomatoes, see this page! Ingredients Equipment 1 Water bath Canner (a huge pot to sanitize the jars after filling (about $30 to $35 - $30 at mall kitchen stores and local "big box" stores. Step 1 - Selecting the tomatoes Step 2 - Get the jars and lids sanitizing
4 Ways to Cure Olives User Reviewed Four Methods:Curing Olives in WaterCuring Olives in BrineDry Curing OlivesLye Curing OlivesCommunity Q&A Curing olives is an ancient process that turns the naturally bitter fruit into a deliciously salty, tart snack. Choose a curing method that works best for the type of olive you have. Prep time (in water): 7-10 days Steps Curing Olives in Water <img alt="Image titled Cure Olives Step 1" src=" width="728" height="546" class="whcdn" onload="WH.performance.clearMarks('image1_rendered'); WH.performance.mark('image1_rendered');">1Obtain fresh green olives. <img alt="Image titled Cure Olives Step 9" src=" width="728" height="546" class="whcdn">9Cover the olives with the brine. Curing Olives in Brine Dry Curing Olives Community Q&A
Fruit Butters Surplus fruits may be preserved by making fruit butters. The only equipment necessary is a good preserving kettle. Various fruit butters recommended are apple butter with cider, apple butter without cider, apple butter with grape juice, apple butter with lemons, pear butter. peach butter, plum butter, and Garfield butter made with plums and peaches. With the exception at a good preserving kettle very little equipment is needed for the preparation of such butters. Apple Butter: There is no better way to use good apples than to make them into butter. The peeled and sliced apples may be cooked in the boiled cider, or they may be first made into apple sauce, which is then cooked in cider. In other words, 2 gallons of sweet cider should be boiled down to 1 gallon, and 2 gallons of the prepared apples should be added to it, either uncooked or as apple sauce. If sugar is used, it should be added after the cooking is about two-thirds done. Apple Butter Without Cider: Pear Butter: Peach Butter:
Encyclopedia of Spices DIY Homemade “Green Powder” Oh, you guys. You know that feeling when you stumble upon something so rad, so essentially, perfectly relevant, so flippin RAD-TASTIC that you actually go past the point of peeing-in-your-pants-excited and just sort of sit back and sigh and shake your head? Yeah. When most people think about food preservation, they’re focused on handling the bounty of produce that warm-weather brings. But what about people like me? Ginormous organic chard for $1/bunch (!!!). This concept is so simple that I simply can’t believe it hasn’t occurred to me sooner. It goes like this: Procure a large quantity of fresh, local, organic greens (like spinach, collards, chard, dandelion, etc). Wash and de-rib the leaves. Collards, the morning after. Next, you’ll need to grind your greens into powder. You could also use a spice grinder, a mortar and pestle, or a food processor. Grind grind grind in batches, until voila! Enjoy!
Weird And Funny Halloween Recipes Posted on Jan 17, 2011 | Comments 0 It is time to bring out the weirdest, the craziest and the goriest of your recipes to add to the horror element of your Halloween Party. The mood for a successful theme party is set with the help of the décor and the food. So for your Halloween party to be the talk of the town you need the spookiest décor items and some truly weird and funny Halloween recipes. Some of the favorite Halloween recipes are those where the end products look like body parts or gory messes. How about a bloody drink? Some interesting and easy Halloween recipes for a kid’s party would be mummy pizza or mummy dogs, both very simple to make and a tasty treat for the kids. Actually the concept here is pretty simple; all you need to do is get creative when baking cookies, use food colors like red and green to gross them out. Cream cheese and marshmallows along with a little lemon gelatin and pineapple juice can be converted into bite sized eyeballs.
How to Make Verjus, or Verjuice Photo by Hank Shaw You know the old saying, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” Well, when life gives you unripe grapes, make verjus. I have a problem. Verjus, pronounced vehr-ZHOO, is a sort of vinegar made from the juice of unripe grapes. Photo by Holly A. As you may have surmised by the name, verjus is a French creation. So how do you make verjus? Fortunately, green grapes grow near you. how to make verjus You will need lots of grapes, a food mill, a fine mesh strainer, some Mason jars and some patience. Makes about 6 cups. 7 pounds unripe grapes1/4 teaspoon citric acid1/8 teaspoon sodium metabisulfite Take most of the stems off the grapes. In batches, grind the grapes through the coarsest plate of your food mill. As you get a slurry of ground-up grapes and grape juice, pour it into a bowl as you work. Now you need to run the ground grapes through a fine mesh sieve. Finally, you will need to pour the strained juice into a Mason jar. Bottle and store in the fridge.
Cookbook of Bewitching Recipes Kitchen Witch Cookbooks Yes there are cookbooks available for real Kitchen Witches. These cookbooks are full of recipes for healing meals, lotions and potions. Kitchen Witch Cookbook page. Witch Whaling Party It's doesn't have to be Halloween to have a spooky party. "Light the candles because it's time to host a haunting meal where green smoke slowly rumbles through the air & the smell of witches brew boils from the caldron. Garden Vegetable Tomato Sauce In honor of the Great Tomato Can Jam Round-Up of 2010, today we bring you Garden Vegetable Tomato Sauce. Let me warn you from the get-go: this is not a beginning canner’s recipe. The ratio of non-acidic to acidic ingredients is critical for canning safety, as are strict adherence to the methods (slicing, dicing & measuring) and processing instructions. Also, I’ve tweaked, more than a little bit, a published recipe (Italian-Style Tomato Sauce from the Ball Complete) in order to add some summer garden-glut vegetables, including the controversial-canning-cucurbit, summer squash. Experienced canners get nervous, and rightly so, when someone starts tweaking an established recipe, especially one dealing with tomatoes, already an on-the-cusp-of-safe-acidity ingredient, and low-acid vegetables such as onions, carrots and garlic. So, if there is even a question of safety, why would I bother making this sauce? Adapted from dozens of tomato sauce recipes in various cookbooks. Summer. Like this:
How to To Make Your Food Taste Awesome | Easy Food Posted by admin on Aug 19, 2012 in Food Preparation | 211 comments In case you are not skilled with the food recipes and preparation, listed bellow are some of the easy food tips to make your meals delicious easy way. No matter you prepare breakfast, dinner or just a snack, the easy food tips are here to make your food even more attractive and awesome. Idea by Janice Kamide Images Source BuzzFeed Small Harvest Preserving - Canning Tomatoes and Zucchini Details Published on Saturday, 30 June 2012 03:31 Written by Christine I was blessed this year with an abundance of zucchini. I had already been pickling it, dehydrating it and pressure canned some too. Pressure Canned Tomatoes and Zucchini - makes 7 quarts Here is what you will need: About 12 pounds of tomatoes - I had German Stripe Tomatoes About 4 pounds of zucchini - you can always cut the recipe down and basically use 1 pound of zucchini for each 3 pounds of tomatoes You can add pearl onions if you like but I did not have any available so I didn't Canning and picking salt if desired Here's what to do: Prepare canner, jars and lids Fill a large stainless steel saucepan, with water and bring to a boil.