honeysuckle honey

Kiss me, honey, honey, kiss me ...

Honeysuckle flowers surprisingly late in the year and with this beautiful Indian summer the flowers are pristine and ripe for the picking. Pick a few blooms - say about a dozen - and immerse them in a jar of honey. Set the jar in the sun for a couple of weeks on a south-facing windowsill. Strain off and you will have a perfect cough syrup ready for the colds and flu season. And it will taste yummy too.

INFLUENZA

That headcold turned nasty. By Friday I was running a temperature but it's only Monday and I'm already on the mend. Out came all the remedies. Blues and flu's tea worked just as well as Paracetamol to bring down my temperature but tasted much nicer. The elderberry based flu tincture also tasted nice and cut through the gunge nicely. Potter's Vegetable Cough Remover was brilliant with the tickle. Eucalyptus, Thyme and Lavender oils inhaled over steaming hot water completely soothed my inflamed chest - always a weak spot with me. Eucalyptus oil on my pillow helped me to breathe through the night. Chest rubs with the same oils brought antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties to my lungs through my skin. I didn't smell of Chanel No 5 - my favourite perfume - but it was better than a chest infection or antibiotics. They bring you so low. Necessary sometimes but only if the above fail. Well - was it swine flu? How are we supposed to know? All the advice seems to be stay home, especially stay away from doctors, get yourself well and go back to work. They've even withdrawn the blanket Tamiflu. So thank goodness, yet again for herbs - hurrah! I'm on the mend and on the up. Damn that means I can no longer justify watching old swashbucklers in the daytime.........

Headcold? Try French Onion Soup

My blessed daughter, fresh from yet another night on the tiles, forgot her toothbrush. She then shared with me the privilege of using my own. As a result I now have her head cold and not a little resentment! Apart from lots of raw garlic (yes I do stink but am unrepentant), fizzy Vitamin C tablets (more digestible - always take with food for better absorption) and my own magic herbal flu/cold formula, my own favourite traditional remedy is home-made French onion soup.

We've had a particularly good harvest of onions this year, despite the monsoon in July and although the stems rotted so they can't be hung on strings in the kitchen looking pretty, there are plenty of them sunbathing in serried ranks in our greenhouse. Make this soup yourself, if you are still standing, and inhale the gutsy aromas. This will disinfect your lungs, throat and nose very effectively and is also highly therapeutic and if your eyes and nose run - that's GREAT! They are being sluiced out by all those wonderful antiseptic aromas.

Recipe:

Take at least 8 good sized onions and dice finely. Sweat (now this is the secret of a good French onion soup) for 20 minutes - yes TWENTY! in some good olive oil. Don't use butter at this stage as it will burn. Keep the lid on so they get really soft and watch for the sugar caramelising. You want them to colour up but not burn. A little (but not a lot) of stickiness is perfect. Take the lid off occasionally and inhale - it will do you the power of good. When they are soft and golden and almost mushy, add as much garlic as you can spare - up to one bulb (yes BULB not CLOVE). Also add, preferably fresh but dried (in which case halve the quantity) will do, about 5 sage leaves, 10 marjoram leaves, 20 little thyme leaves. Swirl about briefly and then add about 1 and 1/2 litres of good stock. The French use beef, you could try chicken or vegetable or even yeast extract is nice too. Now bring to the boil (inhale again) and then simmer gently for about an hour. Serve (without the stringy cheese bit as dairy will NOT help your cold) with lots of fresh parsley and chunky granary bread.

A variation on this is my late lamented but very wise grandmother's cough recipe. She had 10 children and died at 98 so I have plenty of faith in her. She only gave up work in her 88th year. Put some onions in some brown sugar in the lowest setting of the range overnight. Mash up the gloup in the morning and bottle. The resulting syrup is an ideal cough medicine with enough syrup to coat the throat and plenty of antibacterial properties in the onions. The above soup recipe further adds the effectiveness of sage, thyme and marjoram to the garlic and onions and these are all strongly antibacterial and antiviral. Trust me - it works!

Sloe, sloe, quick, quick, sloe - gin!

Chestnuts roasting by the fire, Nat King Cole on the stereo, Great Aunt Nellie asleep on the sofa, new noisy toys for the children and the batteries not yet run down, the tree lights already on the blink ....and a little toddy of sloe gin clasped in your desperate hand. A great softener for the claustrophobia of the traditional Christmas. Make it now as your personal insurance and insulation against the cold and the tension! It's so easy.

Above are all the ingredients you'll need. Pick ripe, slightly squeezable sloes in September. 2009 has been a cracking year for them in Wales - they must like rain! If you have 3 lbs of fruit, as here, you will need 1 lb of sugar and about half a bottle of gin. Give the sloes a sluice in cold water and prick them all over. Traditional recipes say use a darning needle but I find a sharp vegetable knife more comfortable because it has a good handle to grip. Pour the fruit into a wide necked jar, add the sugar and pour over the gin. Seal and resist for at least 3 months. Strain off the fruit, savour the aroma and decant into beautiful decanters - if you're richer than me cut crystal would be absolutely ideal and very pretty. Drink in sherry glasses - this is a liqueur - not a wine.

I once gave a dinner party to friends and at the end of the evening two of the blokes accepted my invitation to a little sloe gin as a liqueur to round things off. I put the decanter on the table with two sherry glasses, everyone else having migrated to the log fire in the other room. They looked askance at the tiddly glasses and I gave an altogether too gentle warning of the strength of the purple sweet liquid. "Mmmm, this slips down easily," said one of them, a respectable and usually teetotal doctor. I left them to it and joined in with the lively chatter in the other room. When we all came back some time later, the decanter was virtually empty and beatific smiles emanated from our two male companions, now truly bonded and replete. Alas, when they went to stand up and take their leave, their legs had turned to rubber. I am reliably informed their lives did not exist for a further two days when normal duties could be resumed. The fact that they seem to resent this just made me cross when I looked at the empty decanter. Lesson? Only ever pour guests out one glass and then hide it!

Elderberry winemaking

It's my favourite time of the year - elderberry time. There is nothing more delicious than the smell of elderberries boiling and all the merriement that heralds. Today I slogged through deep mud to find the meagre pickings of elderberries that are found on Gower. It is not elderberry territory. And yet I love it and I love elderberry wine too. I was famous for it when I lived in the rich soil of Wiltshire. Here the Atlantic saltwinds prevent the flowers from setting fruit - so we're okay for elderflower wine but the berries do take some finding. However I would encourage everyone who has access to an elderberry bush to make some of this nectar.

Here's the recipe:

In old money -

4 lbs of elderberries, stripped from their stalks (takes time -use music and contemplation)
3 - 4 lbs of sugar (bog standard but I'm using soft brown organic this time) depending on ripeness and sweetness of the fruit - taste it
wine yeast (according to label instructions)
1 gallon of good water (not so daft as it sounds London water is crap and will ruin your wine)

Put the stripped berries in the water and boil for 10 minutes - this is bulky and you'll probably need a preserving pan for the volume

Pour into a fermenting bucket (sterilised)
Add yeast when lukewarm.

Leave for saliva inducing week as you smell the fermenting must and stir once a day if you remember. Decant into a sterilised demi-john with a bubble cork and put in the airing cupboard for at least 6 weeks or in my case until xmas when I suddenly have a passion for it. Rack off into another clean demijohn until no sediment appears in the bottom - prob about March and then decant into sterilised bottles. Try and save it until the following Xmas but you probably won't make it. I never do.

This year I couldn't get 4 lbs of fruit (which leads to a rich and porty wine) so I've made do with 2 lbs and added 3 black peppercorns for spice, ginger (a thumbsized piece) for warmth and a chopped lemon for extra Vit C. I 'll let you know if it works. You could also try a stick of cinnamon, a few cloves, star anise - any of the usual flavours for spiced wine.

IN the meantime, I shall harvest more and make a conventional gallon.

For the unitiated not only is this wine truly and utterly blissful on the palate but it is extremely good for you, being rich in vitamin C, and anti-viral. It is a heavenly flu, cold and misery remedy for winter and is a general standby in times of frugality, famine, illness and boredom. I rely on it to get me through til I can pick its sister, the elder flower which makes a champion champagne.

Elderflower is the queen of wines and Elderberry the king. Enjoy.

just a little postscript to a salvaged day. MMMmm cooked a risotto on the gas ring in the garden. It was too hot to shop so made it up from garden and freezer. Started with sizzled scallops and parsley, lemon and seasalt. Then cooked red onion, garlic in olive oil, with some home-made coriander margarine, added half a butternut squash and fried the rice. Sluiced in some white wine left by debauched daughter and not worth drinking, when that had evaporated, added a knorr stockcube and some hot water from kettle. Then in went some haddock from frozen, and ten minutes of simmering later finished it with some frozen king prawns, rocket and pea shoots from garden, freshly shelled peas, black pepper, manchego cheese and a generous swirl of soya cream. You will note - no cow's dairy produce - reason: a) am strongly allergic b) bull calves are killed for it. Goats and sheep produce milk for far longer - 3 yrs for goats (not sure about sheep) so far less young are sacrificed in its production. And of course soya (which is a lot nicer than it sounds) kills no-one (as far as I know) and I make sure it's not of the GM variety (before you question my sanctity). With a sunlit evening we were well into relaxing but the midges soon put paid to that so hello computer.......and (sigh) capsule making.

Thursday, 4th June. European elections day. Beautifully sunny and warm again too, though not as hot as the last few days, thankfully. I work in a conservatory and have virtually fried. Ideal weather though for picking herbs. The chemicals are concentrated by the sunshine and process of photosynthesis and damp rain clinging to the leaves and flowers are the worst thing for tinctures going off. So, despite frustrations of technology and websites, I found refuge in picking lemon balm and hawthorn from my garden in the early summer sun.

Lemon balm looks very much like mint but has a much more lemony scent when crushed. It is an excellent anti-viral and harvesting some now is judicious and wise before swine flu takes hold, as seems inevitable later in the year, when the glorious summer will be a fond memory.

Hawthorn leaves, berries and flowers oxygenate heart muscle, helping the heart to beat more efficiently, boosting energy levels. The flowers were better a couple of weeks ago but the growing tips provide a lovely, goodness laden alternative. The other name for hawthorn is Mayblossom and that is the ideal month to gather the aromatic, some would say smelly, flowers.

Certainly my heart was soothed and my soul received balm as I handled the beautiful plants and smelt their aromas as I chopped and preserved them. Thanks Mother Nature!

Now for a more civic duty...........I'm thinking green!

Natural harvests

Hi, I'm Alex and this is my first blogging adventure. Ah the hungry blank page. What I'm about is encouraging people to get out into their gardens and local wild places and eat or drink it. I'm a qualified herbalist and long time hunter-gatherer. It's tremendous fun gathering plants from the wilderness and, with a few tips on safety, a great way to enjoy being outdoors with family and friends. So, here's my first recipe for elderflower champagne:

First, choose a sunny bright morning and pick the frothy flowers after the dew has dried.
Smell the heady scent and revel in early midsummer. Pick a few heads - say half a dozen - be sure to identify the plant correctly - see my website for details www.serenity-healing.co.uk and collect them in a wicker basket or cotton bag. Don't use plastic - they'll sweat and get nasty pretty quickly.
Once home, strip the pretty lacy flowers from their umbrella-like stem and put in a large basin. Add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar, a lemon cut into chunks, 1/2 to one kilo of sugar and a gallon of tepid water. You can add champagne yeast for extra fizz but generally in one week, maybe two, the natural yeasts will bubble on their own. Then you can bottle it in old-fashioned pulldown clasping bottles and chill til you want to drink them.
Fantastic al fresco with a picnic.

The taste of summer incarnate..........