Weekly Wellness Letter October 13th 2013

[suzanne sanders]

  It has been a great farming season and we learned a lot.   There were some hard lessons learned and some insightful ones,   

This summer was a green tomato summer, which means a colder winter, I see more darkness and lots of rain... Which means start taking your vitamin D NOW, plan hikes in nature through the fall season and winter.  Hike when it rains, run when it rains, walk in the rain, do kung fu in the rain and dance in the rain.  Embrace the liquid sunshine.  Sungaze at the sunsets when the sun is out, take a moment bundle up and watch the cold starry sky.  Seek art with community, add color to your winter.  

Plan you winter menus  to build up your immune system, by adding energizing bone broth, make elderberry syrup, make fire cider, high vitamin C tea, nettle tea and stay away from SUGAR.... 

Eat organic fermented foods

Get some tinctures made of Elecampane, Oregon grape, echinacea, hawthorn, lemon balm,

Thoughts and talks have been started on new things that we will implement for next year.  But,  I am also very ready for some much needed rest, reading, knitting, crafting, cooking, more canning,  more sleep,  jumping into my herbal studies and making healing remedies.

I will also be teaching some herbal classes, I will put together a schedule soon and send it out.  

Wellness Box:

Nettle, Kale, swiss chard, brassica family, peppermint, lemon balm, catnip mint, stevia, parsley, sage, rosemary, fennel seeds, hawthorn berries, rosehips, kakai pumpkin, acorn squash, sugar pumpkin, onions, celery, and jerusalem artichokes also called sunchokes. 

Rosehips: 

Pour 1 cup of boiling water over 2 heaping teaspoons of chopped rose hips. You can use rose hips with or without their seeds. Steep the herbal tea, covered, for 15 minutes and strain. Sweeten the refreshing, slightly sour tea with honey, if desired. Drink the tea lukewarm at bedtime for maximum effectiveness.

You could also make this as a strong infusion and steep it for 8 hours. 

Rose hip tea is refreshing, pleasantly tart and contains vitamins A, B, C, E and K, pectin and organic acids. Besides battling colds, the nutrient-rich tea boosts your health in other ways as well. This popular medicinal tea strengthens the body's resistance to infection, reinforces digestive function, combats all kinds of illnesses with fever, flushes out the kidneys and urinary tract and relieves mild rheumatic pain.

When you think of vitamin C, you are most likely to think of grapefruit and oranges. But rose hips, the fruit of the wild rose, have even more vitamin C than do citrus fruits. Rose hips were long known as a food, but only since the mid-twentieth century has their medicinal value as a premier source of the essential vitamin been recognized. The vitamin C content gives rose hip tea its primary benefit, the ability to help prevent and treat colds and flu.

Hawthorn:  Make infused honey and Tincture

http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/November08/healingwise.htm

More information on Hawthorn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sOWXQi08T4

This is one of the ways I like to make the Hawthorn Honey: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6AG_FlEkfY

Make a tincture of Hawthorn

Stevia, Catnip Mint, Parsley... 

Kakai Pumpkin ( eat the hulled seeds) and Sugar Pumpkin (use for desserts)

Jerusalem Artichoke or Sunchoke 

Information: 

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/food/index.ssf/2011/10/flavor_of_th...

http://www.foodwisenw.com/tag/jerusalem-artichoke/

Raw Recipe: fleur de sel, is sea salt

http://www.forkandflower.com/2013/02/raw-jerusalem-artichoke-salad-...

Fennel Seeds:

Fennel Cream: 

Use over organic chicken, organic sausage, organic veggies. etc...

3 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons fennel seeds, crushed

1 large onion, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons minced garlic

3 large shallots, minced

1/2 cup organic  dry white wine or organic white wine

1 1/2 cups organic chicken broth

1/2 cup  organic whipping cream (Do not use Ultra Pasteurized!) 

Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add 1 teaspoon crushed fennel seeds and stir until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Reduce heat to medium-low. Now add onion and sauté until they are very tender and caramelized, about 40 minutes.   Add minced garlic and minced shallots.  Cook for about 2 minutes

 Add white wine and boil until liquid is reduced to glaze, about 2 minutes. Add chicken broth and whipping cream and boil until reduced to sauce consistency, whisking often, about 5 minutes. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper.

Enjoy!! 

Peace to you, enjoy your fall and upcoming winter! 

Pictured below:  Golden Tree Of Fall, (this is not the sun)

[Victoria Pich]

Salt, yes. I got a sack from Azure, but how much do you recommend? I think I have 25 lbs, plus kosher salt that I use on sauerkraut-

[suzanne sanders]

Hi Vicki, 

Thank you for sharing.  It is that time of year, to plan for the next years garden.  The visions, dreams and plans that I am creating for next year are already exciting me. I love this time of year, it gives pause, reflection, dreams, plans and hopefully rest.   I would like to grow more cabbage too and other types of foods for fermenting.  The more I read about fermented foods the more I realize, that, we should all be eating it on a regular basis.  The other day I was listening to a lecture from a Veterinarian who uses herbs in his practice.  One of the things he suggests  is giving your dogs, nettle, oat tops and other herbs that have been infused over night.  He said that wild dogs, like coyotes and wolves, the first thing they eat, is the gut part in their kill because it has fermented greens.  Amazing to think wild dogs eat fermented greens before they indulge in their meat meal.  I agree with you it is  good to put away certain things for just in case scenarios.  I would add salt to your storage list.  Salt works good to preserve meat if you do not have electricity to keep your meat frozen or cold.  Have fun collecting the Hawthorns. 

[Victoria Pich]

I love this time of year, when we evaluate our work and hunker down. We just made our sauerkraut and I have been evaluating that - I've decided that we need to grow our own cabbage to make it worth doing, since I spent almost 40 dollars to fill our 2.5 gallon crock! The problem is that we can't grow cabbage here in the summer because aphids decimate it. We've tried ladybugs etc with zero success, so I am planning on starting some in the hoophouse now, for a spring crop. The aphids won't be out yet.
Then there is the moderate success of our golden sweet potato crop: I had some that had sprouted, so I planted them in the hoophouse, and they actually produced something!
This is the time of year to rest a little and enjoy the harvest. Speaking of which, I am enjoying some minimuffins I made from almond flour, coconut oil, maple syrup, baking soda and salt, figs soaked in pomegranite juice and ground up, and vanilla. The figs were ours! It was supposed to be a rolled cookie sort of thing, but there is something wrong with the recipe and it is way to goopy, so I added the coconut flour and made tiny muffins. I am exploring things to do with figs, besides drying them.
And you have inspired me to go on a walk and harvest some hawthorne!
One other thing I am pondering is putting in more beds to grow stuff for the hens. They love sunflowers and amaranth. I toss them the occasional echinacea leaf, as well as any other herbs I feel like offering them (oregano, lemon balm, fennel, dill are the usual ones, as well as dandelions and selfheal and grasses).
And our blackberry wine is bubbling away, happy with the organic sugar we got from Azure Standard. :)
Finally, I am stocking up on supplies like baking soda and vinegar, in case prices shoot up...
Well, I hope we see you soon!

[Victoria Pich]

You grow and make some beautiful food!