We picked and mixed our own herbal tea (tisane)

Wild Chamomile Blossom - Taken by Shala Kerrigan

In the last few years, I've been making a point of showing William and TG what's edible in our yard, and in the woods by our house. I know that I don't know all of it, not by a long shot, and we plan to take a class together at some point to learn more about wild edibles.

Last night we decided to go for a walk to pick wild chamomile. Since I don't have any in our yard, but we have lots within walking distance it was good exercise.

If you are planning to pick your own tea, look for sources that are not chemically fertilized, close to streets, or where people might use pesticides!! We generally look in untended, wooded lots for the stuff not growing in our own yard, and I know that my yard is all natural. *

Chamomile looks a lot like the very common Shasta Daisies up here, but there are some very clear differences.

• Chamomile branches quite a bit
• Chamomile blossom centers don't have the same very obvious spiral that daisies have.
• Foliage- Chamomile has lots of pointy, bushy foliage, daisies have jagged leaves
• The centers- if you look at the photo above, you'll see how some of the centers are very high. Daisy centers are quite flat compared to chamomile. Some chamomile may have a flat center, but since they grow in clumps, look at a few. If you see some high domes over the petals, it's probably chamomile!
• Scent! Chamomile has a pleasant scent. Shasta daisies do not.
• Chamomile can also wind up looking like a shuttle cock in shape later in the season as the petals droop from those high domed centers. You don't want to pick those flowers, but usually there will be a lot that are still in nice bloom.

Tisane is the correct term for brewed herbal "teas", and tea drinkers can be quite adamant about it. Tea will have tea leaves. Everything else isn't tea. 

So if you're going to pick your own chamomile, you want to pick flowers in perfect bloom. Trim the stems after you rinse them off at home. After careful consideration, we decided on an old trick or treat bucket to use as a basket for the picked flowers. I drilled holes in the bottom of it for drainage, and now I think as we find pumpkin buckets stashed away from when our kids were little, we are going to modify them all into berry and flower buckets! Chamomile tea is made from the blossoms.

After we got home, we took a look around our yard to decide what else should go into the mix. Of course we pinched some mint, because mint and chamomile go well together.

Raspberry leaves taste wonderful brewed but have some specific warnings:

• Make the tea either from fresh leaves, or completely, absolutely dry leaves. Partly dry leaves can make you sick.
• Don't drink raspberry leaf tea if your pregnant.

If you're working with fresh leaves, or completely dry leaves the rest of the time, it's pretty safe. They add a great fruity, slightly tart flavor to herbal blends. It's also frequently used in teas for women during that special time of the month.

Raspberry leaf infusions also make a great natural toner! Steep them in boiling water, then apply to your face. They help with acne and such. So raspberry leaves are just an all-around great option for teen age girls!

You can also use strawberry leaves! Same warning on half dry leaves. Just don't, for berries, I always figure absolutely fresh or completely dry.

They tried the Pineapple Weed which is also known as false chamomile and decided against that.

So they rinsed everything they picked, and planned their cups of fresh. TG put 2 chamomile blossoms in her cup, and lightly bruised the mint and raspberry leaves between her fingers, 4 medium sized mint leaves and 2 medium sized raspberry leaves. Then brought water to a near boil, and poured it over the leaves and flowers to steep.

Both of them enjoyed their cups straight up, no sugar, no honey and really enjoyed the flavor. 

You can also use- whole, ripe berries for a strong berry flavor, clover flowers, rose hips or rose petals (pinch off the white base) to name a few other options.

The rest of the mix is drying now, so we can put it in a jar for winter. 

* When the ground finally thawed this year, there was a HUGE pile of moose droppings by my strawberry patch. I had my kids put plastic bags over their shoes and go out and stamp it all down. That strawberry patch has simply exploded with lots of big, heavy, wonderful tasting strawberries! 

Dragonfly Tea Box and Coloring Page

My friend Rosemary likes my printable tea boxes and also really likes stained glass effects. This is NOT the tea box template she means. But the other wouldn't have worked with this design. Click on the image to open a larger version. Print on card stock, cut, score, fold, glue. I recommend Chrome browser for printing directly from a browser.

I hope you also enjoy the coloring page. I really love how this dragonfly turned out and it will probably show up in other designs. Click the page for a larger version. Transparent PNG format.

Tattoo Tea Box

I haven't used any of my tea box sized templates in a while. This one will hold a few bags of tea, the kind that come wrapped in foil. It's 300 dpi, click on the image for the full sized version. I hope you like the design.

How to make sugar cubes or shapes

My darling daughter prefers her coffee with brown sugar. She's also as I've said before, a bit of an Anglophile. Which means occasionally at least, she likes lumps of sugar instead of spoonfuls. Brown sugar cubes are awfully expensive.
So this weekend, we made a batch of sugar shapes for her.

Because the mold we used was fairly detailed, it's a bit hard to see what they are supposed to be. Here's a picture I messed with the contrast a bit and greyscaled. Hopefully it shows a little better. The contrast adjustment made it a bit grainy, but it is a bit clearer.

Because the only thing cooler than brown sugar cubes for my daughter is brown sugar daleks and TARDIS. 

You will need:

Brown sugar- we used an organic brown sugar that she really likes

water

an ice cube tray or small candy molds*

parchment paper lined cookie sheet

a place they can dry out safely

Wash your hands well. You could do this with silicone spatulas but it's a lot easier to do it by hand.

Put a cup of brown sugar into a bowl, and add a half teaspoon full of water. Mix it in well so that it's all just a bit moister than usual. Squeeze a handful and see if it sticks together. If it does, it's ready. If it's not, add in water just a sprinkle at a time until it does stick when you form it with your hands.

Pack your mold well, only 2 or 3 cavities at a time. Turn it out on the parchment paper. Continue until all the sugar is used. If you want to make more than that, do it the same way. If one breaks when you're popping it out of the mold, pick up the sugar the best you can and put it back into your bowl to use again.

After you get as many as you like made, put it some place safe and draft and humidity free to dry. The ones above we let dry for 5 hours. After they were dry, we put them in a tightly sealed container.

I couldn't find my paste coloring, but I think it would be fun to do a bunch of Go Go Dalek Rangers in the right colors!

The same technique works with other sugars, and the less detail there is in the mold, the better. The Cybermen in our ice cube tray had too much subtle detail to work well at all. Raw sugars or white sugars will need a little more water than brown sugar because brown sugar is so moist to begin with.

Hearts would be lovely for Valentine's Day, little roses would be sweet for a princess tea party.

*If you want cubes, I recommend using a mini ice cube tray. Otherwise, use your favorite small candy molds. The tray I used is a Doctor Who ice tray that we were given by a close friend who blames The Turnip for her Doctor Who and Torchwood addiction.

Tea or favor printable boxes

These would make good gift boxes, but I sized them to hold four-five bags of Tazo tea. We drink a lot of herbal tea, and I usually have a couple bags with me in case I'm somewhere that just doesn't have the kinds of tea I like.  My husband is crazy for orange teas. Market Spice, Constant Comment and his favorite herbal infusion is the Wild Sweet Orange. If you have any orange flavored tea suggestions, please let me know! Yes, we do have tea balls for loose tea. We just tend to use bags frequently for convenience and consistency.

The colorways for this box are inspired by friends of mine. Click on the images for the full size 100 ppi versions.