Homesteader's Honey

My memories on FB popped up this photo. It's from the 1990s. The man in the photo is my brother and the boy is my son. The handwriting is my mom's and it says "Adam and Wm picking clover and fireweed for me to make honey" The side note says (*Enlarge?)

I may well do just that. It would be a gorgeous print.

She got her recipe from the local cooperative extension service. Here it is:

Homesteader's Honey

6 cups sugar
3 cups boiling water
30 white clover blossoms
18 red clover blossoms
18 fireweed blossoms
Sterilize canning jars and prepare lids. Boil together
sugar and water for 10 minutes; maintain steady
boil on low heat without stirring. Remove from
heat. Add blossoms and let steep for 15 minutes.

Strain mixture through cheesecloth and immediately
pour into hot canning jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace.
Wipe jar rims and add prepared two-piece
lids. Process 5 minutes in a boiling water canner.
Note: Sugar syrup can be tricky. If it crystallizes before
canning, return it to the pan, add 2 tablespoons
water per cup of honey and heat.

My mom used to make so many jars of this as a present.

I hope you enjoy the memory. It made me smile to see it in my memories today.

Mint Matcha Ice Tea Pops- Recipe

The green ice pops in my review of Stars Wars Ice Sabers Cookbook? Those were a wild idea I had recently. I was thinking of making a mint tea ice pop for the super refreshing and cool taste of mint. But I wanted them to be green, but naturally green. Which made me think of matcha green tea.

Matcha is a finely ground green tea that has a few varieties available. For things like this, you are looking for culinary grade. It adds nice flavor, and a great green color. The much more expensive ceremony grade matcha should be appreciated properly on it's own, and not as an ingredient. Check your local Asian grocery or if your supermarket is very well stocked, it might be available there. 

The ice pop mold I used has cavities that take about 2 tablespoons of liquid. Check the volume of your mold, and adjust recipe to fit.

You will need:

1/4 cup fresh mint OR a mint tea bag- I used fresh mint from my garden

1 Tbs honey! That's why they have kind of a murky- Yoda like color. The honey I used is a local produced darker honey that I love.

1 cup boiling water

1 or 2 pinches of matcha tea

In a medium sized bowl-

Bruise the mint with a spoon, or put in the tea bag. Then add 1 cup of boiling water and the tablespoon of honey. Mix the honey in well until it dissolves completely. Cover the bowl with a plate and let the tea steep for 5-10 minutes. (I like it strong so I went 10 minutes)

Strain out the mint, or take out the tea bag. Apply pressure to the leaves or tea bag to get out as much liquid as possible.

Add a pinch of matcha powder, and using a small whisk, whisk it well. If you want it a little greener, add another pinch of matcha. 

Use a funnel to pour the liquid into your molds, and freeze until solid.

It's an unusual flavor, but it's really good and just as refreshing as F5!

I do recommend planting mint. Even if you have the blackest thumb in creation, it's hard to kill mint. I have a little corner of my yard that's dedicated to mint. Mint likes to take over so it's best to plant it in containers, or have it walled in someway. 

Shamrock Plaid Box!

If you click on the shamrock label in my tags, there are a few more shamrock printables on the site. I hope you enjoy this one. Tomorrow I'll post coordinated 2 inch circles for labels or cupcakes!
Click on the image for a larger version, and print, cut, score, fold, glue.

Did you know clover is an edible weed? I consider dandelions my first harvest, but clover certainly comes in fast behind it. Fireweed, which is less common in other places than it is here, and chickweed round out my "weeds" harvest. An Alaskan tradition is something called Homesteader's Honey, it's a honey like sauce that's made using fireweed, red clover and white clover blossoms with sugar. Since sugar is a staple that ships and keeps well, and it's less expensive than honey, it was a popular alternative for some families. I collecting blossoms for my mother when I was a kid, and she would put up jars to gift and for our family. She always just used our Cooperative Extensions recipe. While I buy locally produced honeys, this summer, I plan to make some just like my mom did. But she had a gorgeous lawn, where I've allowed my edible weeds to flourish, so I should be able to collect all the blossoms in my yard.

Homesteader's Honey

Ingredients:
10 cups sugar
18 red clover blossoms
18 fireweed florets
2 1/2 cups boilng water
30 white clover blossoms
1 teaspoon alum
Procedure
In large pot with boiling water, sterilize canning jars, lids and rings. For up-to-date information about safe home canning practices, see for approved canning methods .
In a large saucepan, bring water to a boil. Add sugar and alum whule stirring. Continue to boil and stir until mixture is clear, may take up to ten minutes.
Remove saucepan from heat and add the blossoms and allow to steep for 15 minutes.
Pour through multiple layers of sterilized cheesecloth into the prepared jars. Allow ½-inch head space. Apply lids and bands immediately. Snug bands and invert jars, allow to cool.
Use as you would regular honey. If crystallization occurs, carefully warming uncapped jars in the microwave can liquify the mixture.

This recipe is the one my mom made from our local cooperative extension service. You can download the PDF of fireweed recipes for free from their site here.

Honey Shortbread with printable recipe card

Down to crunch time for holiday gifts. Hopefully this helps!

I made this shortbread using a locally produced honey from Chugiak Heights Alaskan Honey. It's a wonderful wildflower honey with lots of flavor. You can either buy good local honey or gourmet honey and tie on the recipe cards or you could bake a few batches of shortbread and package it prettily with the recipe cards. I love shortbread and I'm working on an e-book of different recipes for it. This is one of my favorite variations. I used a combination of honey and white sugar, the honey adds a subtle warm flavor to the shortbread.

I used a white whole wheat unbleached flour for mine because it's one of the flours my family likes best.

Honey Shortbread
makes 8 wedges
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 cup flour
Preheat oven to 300° F or 150°C
Cream butter, honey and sugar together.
Add half of flour, then add in the rest in increments until
dough is crumbly. Knead in the rest of the flour making
a soft workable dough. Pat into an 8 inch round cake pan.
Decorate edges with a fork and pierce with fork.
Score the wedges with a sharp knife. Bake for 20 minutes.
Turn off oven and let rest in hot oven for 10 minutes.
Take it out and cut wedges while still warm.
To decorate the shortbread with a fork, go around the edges with the flat of it to make pretty little score lines all around, then pierce the shortbread with the tines of the fork. Cut into 8 pieces.

For the recipe card, click on the image for the full sized version and print at 300 dpi or I have put it in a layout of 3 cards on one page in a PDF file you can download HERE

Happy Holidays!