Quick Basket Decor Craft with Fall Flowers

 

Oh the crisp cool days of fall! A lot of hustling, last minute garden harvests, berry picking, apple picking. 

And a moment for a bit of simple crafting with one of my favorite plants. See the picture above? The little nosegay off to the side is a bundle of dried yarrow I picked earlier this year and wrapped in pretty yarn and hung to dry. 

Yarrow dries beautifully, means a lot of things to a lot of cultures, has been used as medicine everywhere it grows and I always have a bundle hanging by my door. 

You will need: 

• An open work basket with an edging big enough to thread flower stems through
• a plant you like the look of that dries well 
• a pair of sharp scissors
  
  

The basket I used was made by my son. He wasn't really happy with how he finished the edge of this one. That said, any basket with a decorate edge or a bit loose weaving towards the top will work. 

Cut the yarrow so the stems are about 5 inches long, but shorter will work for some sections. You just need them long enough to weave them in a bit. 

Get comfortable, and start weaving the yarrow into the top. Pull it as close to flush with the basket as possible so looks nice and full. 

Weave the ends in a couple inches. As you add more yarrow, you can also weave the ends into the other ends of yarrow and the basket. 

After the edge is completely filled in, go around and snip off any pieces of stem that are too long. 

Hang, and enjoy it while it's drying. 

You can also tie a ribbon or piece of fabric in a bow under it, but if you do that, do it before the yarrow dries so you're not breaking off the yarrow. 

Dried yarrow has stayed nice looking for me for a couple years. Since I'm not sealing this, when it does start fading in a few years, I'll carefully break off the dried yarrow and replace it. If you don't want to do that or if you're giving the basket as a gift, you can use a clear spray sealing spray on it after it dries completely to preserve the colors. 

Spiced Crab Apple Jelly Recipe

 

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. It's harvest season. The berries, the mushrooms, all those other things wild and cultivated that my family picks and creates the jams, sauces, syrups and jellies we use through out the year and give to our friends. Also, I'm going to do something weird and give you the recipe before the back story.

This is actually a TECHNIQUE and a recipe both. The technique is for easily juicing the crab apples. 

Juicing the crab apples in an Instant Pot

This method will not be as clear as traditional juicing methods, more of a "cider" than a juice.

You will need: 

• 10 lbs of crab apples- ornamental are fine, we used ornamental for this batch
• water to cover
• strainer
• Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker

We have a Ninja pressure cooker that's large enough we did this in 2 batches, which wound up being 2 cups of water per batch to cover the apples. 

Prep apples by removing stems. For larger crab apples, you can cut them in half too. Seeds and skins will be discarded with the pulp, but can add natural pectin to the finished jelly. 

Bring up to pressure and cook for 8 minutes. Natural release. Using a bowl to catch the juice, strain out the solids. A mesh strainer will work, you can line it with cheese cloth if you want a clearer finished jelly. We just strained and smooshed it through. The pulp and the discarded stems all went into our compost heap. 

Juice can be frozen to keep to process into jelly later. Also if you really, really like sour, go ahead and try it. It is sour though. 

Jelly Recipe (makes 12 half pints with a little leftover)

You will need:

• 9 cups of juice. Measure out your juice, add water to make 9 cups if necessary
• 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 11 cups of sugar
• pinch each allspice, cinnamon and either mace or nutmeg (we used mace, I'm very fond of that vintage spice) 
• 2 packages of pectin- we used powdered Sure-Jell

Mix crab apple juice, lemon juice, and sugar in a large heavy bottomed pan. Add in spices. Stir, heat slowly to mix completely and dissolve sugar completely. Stir in 2 packages of pectin. Bring to a rolling boil (a boil that can't be stirred down) and boil for exactly 1 minute. 

Skim of foam and put into prepared jars with a half inch headroom. Water bath process for 10 minutes.  

Crab apples are pretty new in our harvesting. Last year at a virtual plant symposium, someone told me approximately where her Dad had planted crab apple trees decades ago. My daughter went out exploring and found them and also found out that other people weren't picking them. Over the course of the next few weeks, she and her brother picked about 30 lbs of them. They were dried, used in pie, used for jellies and apple butter. 

Those trees aren't ready yet. But a friend of our offered to let TG and William pick at her house and they got 16 lbs total! We gave some to a friend, and used the rest to make this jelly. 

It's delicious. This would be amazing with moose, caribou, or if you're down south, venison. It's also a natural for pork. The sweet, tart, spiced combination is a natural with sharp cheese too. 

Natural Plantain Anti-Itch Salve

I used the MB2E from Magical Butter * to make this salve really easily- but I'll include instructions for making it without using the machine too.

The Magical Butter machine is meant for making butters and oils using various botanicals. The way it works is just fantastic for salves made from wildcrafted ingredients.

Plantain- not the banana type fruit, is one of the most common weeds in the USA. It likes disturbed soil like driveways and stuff- or in my case, my deliberately weedy yard. The only thing that's been used on my yard in the 16 years I've lived here is a lawn mower.

It's fantastically soothing for itchy skin. I am not a medical professional or a scientist, this is my opinion and this works well for me.

So the first thing you'll need to do is find a fair amount of plantain.

Fortunately, I have a broad swathe of it in my yard.

Pick about 3 cups of healthy leaves.

Rinse them, put them in a salad spinner to dry, then spread them in a single layer in shallow pans to dry until quite crisp. 

When they are dry, it's time to collect your materials. 

You will need:

• 1 packed cup dry plantain leaves
• 4 cups pure olive oil- don't bother with extra virgin. I don't for salves!
• 3/4 cup grated beeswax OR beeswax pellets
• jars and tins for the finished salve
• strainer of some sort (the MB2 comes with a straining bag) 
• Pans, double boiler set up OR an MB2 
• measuring cup with a spout

If you're using a pan- 

Combine the oil and crushed leaves in a pan.  Simmer over a very low heat for 4 hours. 

Strain out leaves. The oil should be green.

Set aside. Set up double boiler with at least a 6 cup capacity. Mix the infused oil and the beeswax and melt together, stirring often. Pour into tins and jars. I find it's easier to pour from a spouted glass measuring cup and have a 4 cup one. 

If you're using the MB2-

You'll put in all the ingredients. Crushing the leaves is not necessary.

Then set it at 130 degrees and for 2 hours.

The MB2 has a blender in it and it stirs and blends as it works. The botanical matter is shredded into a fine paste. It will beep when it's done.

Set up the included Purify Filter, and put on the LoveGlove to squeeze all the oil out. 

Then you'll pour it into tins and jars.

Label the tins and jars with the date and type of salve you've made. Keep in a cool dark place, but also keep one in your car for bug bites and quick first aid, and keep one in your medicine cabinet. 

Clean up is a cinch. The Purify Filter can be hand washed, the MB2 has a self-cleaning cycle. Just follow the included instructions.

* The link will give you a 25 dollar discount on buying a machine of your own. It is an affiliate link. 

How to make spruce tip salt

This year the spruce tips are coming out a little later than normal. Spruce tips are an easy to forage wild edible that's widely available. They have a green, citrus-y flavor that's bright and my family is pretty wild for it.

Any time you're trying a new wild edible, pick a couple and taste them before harvesting, because you want to make sure you like the flavor! If they need some sort of process to eat- like some mushrooms need to be cooked (NEVER PICK MUSHROOMS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!) - pick a couple, bring them home, and cook them. Just make a note of where you found them.

Spruce tips can be eaten raw. You're looking for just the tips that come out in spring- they will be a light green and the needles are quite tender compared to the rest of the needles. You pick them like berries, just pinching them off the tree. As with any wild edible, harvest sustainably. There are enough tips that you can collect from different places on the trees, and leave most of them in place.

These are the picked tips. See that papery brown coating? It slips right off. Take that off, and discard it. Make sure there is no debris on the tips.

Chop up the tips. You could use a food processor- but I don't like even the mild heat that a motor can generate, or how much gets stuck or pasty because of the slight moisture. Chopping a bunch at a time by hand doesn't take very long.

Mix it with white sea salt. In this case, I got some sea salt from an artisan salt maker in Valdez. She gets sea water and evaporates it. I wanted my spruce tip salt to be made using Alaskan sea salt.

I like a 50/50 mix.

 This is just some of the tips added.

Spread it in a thin layer in a baking sheet and allow to dry overnight. The salt helps it dry quickly. Then put in jars.

What can you do with it?
Spruce tip salt is delicious on vegetables, fish and chicken- and probably good on pork. I'm not really a pork eater.

It makes a lovely, personal gift.

Cottonwood Buds- spring stuff

Geese back in Anchorage

Sorry I haven't been updating. It's spring and my garden calls and the stuff I like to wild harvest is starting to come up.

One of my favorites is cottonwood buds to make a cottonwood bud salve that's just as good as commercial aspirin containing topical creams but smells a lot better for my arthritis.

Black Cottonwood grows literally like a weed in the Anchorage area. During what my family refers to as "tree sex" season, the fluffy seeds are everywhere, almost like snow in the middle of summer. Really sticky snow that is hard to get out of carpets and drives my housekeeper husband completely nuts on the job. (He recommends alcohol to dissolve the sticky. And patience. And putting up a lot of signs for people to wipe their feet)

But in spring, the branches are covered with buds that will become leaves, and those buds have a fair amount of salicylates in the resin. If you can't identify cottonwood, mature trees have a thick, gnarled, grey-ish brown or grey bark and buds smell medicinal- like camphor. The buds will also leave a reddish-brown resin on your fingers when you roll them between your fingers. When you wild harvest anything- my family goes with a strict 1 in 3 method with everything except willow. So we pick one out of 3 buds on a tree and never the ones at the tips of a branch.

This is widely considered the tree to make Balm of Gilead from, and my ancestors used it as a medicine by dissolving the resin in animals fats.

Well, I'm not going to use rendered tallow or lard for my balm. Fortunately, while half of my ancestors probably had no idea that olives even existed, I can go to the grocery store and pick up olive oil.

Generally you want about 2 parts oil to one part cottonwood buds. My family picks from trees in our neighborhood and goes to state parks- our state parks allow reasonable harvesting for personal use as long as you harvest responsibly and it makes a nice hike.

So you put the oil into a jar with the cottonwood buds then top with a coffee filter or a piece of clean fabric. The reason you use the permeable top is because there is some water in the cottonwood buds and you want that to evaporate. Stir daily until the buds sink. Then leave sit for 1-2 months. That's where I'm at now-

As you can see, as the resin dissolves into the olive oil, the buds are getting more green looking. The oil is a gorgeous dark gold color at this point. In colored jars that's hard to see.

Cottonwood oil is considered liquid gold by the people who use it.

After another month, I'll strain the oil, pressing to get as much oil as possible, and then I'll add 2 tablespoons of grated beeswax/cup of oil to make a balm and melt it gently over a double boiler then pour into some of my husband's old pomade tins and mark them clearly.

It might be too late to pick cottonwood in your area, but there are people on Etsy who sell buds and completed oil, and there is a possibility that next year TG and William may be among those sellers.

This year, this is all for me. :)

Book Review- Healing Herbs

I'm a big fan of foraging and using the things that grow wild around my neighborhood, so this is a book that I was very interested in reading.

Healing Herb's- A Beginner's Guide to Identifying, Foraging and Using Medicinal Plants is a lovely collection that's great for beginners because it covers easily identifiable plants and has recipes and tips for using them. Tina Sams has a blog and a magazine called The Essential Herbal and is very knowledgeable in her field. The photographs in this book are clear and gorgeous.

Starting with my favorite- dandelions, which are close to the end of the book.

The dandelion chapter is being used as my example of why this is a great book because I really love dandelions.

Each chapter starts with some history and scientific information about the plant, along with the medicinal uses. Then it gets into recipes! The recipes included are ways to incorporate easily found "weeds" into your skin care regime and diet.

Recipes include an infused skin care oil, dandelion fritters, dandelion root cocoa, a tea for PMS symptoms, green eggs and an infused vinegar.

I love the way this book is laid out, and the flowers and plants chosen for inclusion. There are recipes I've never tried before like gulkand, an uncooked rose petal preserve. The book includes things that can be found in your yard like plantain and dandelions, and a lot of things that can be easily grown or ordered if they don't grow wild in your area. For example, lavender doesn't grow easily here, but there is so much wild chamomile in my neighborhood that I've never even considered planting it in my yard. Raspberries grow wild up here, but I also have my own little thicket.

Chamomile

There were some things not included, so I'm hoping for a sequel that will have recipes for things like shepherd's purse and spruce tips, but I'm really happy with what is included.

If you're someone just getting into foraging and wild crafting, this is a lovely book full of great photos, information and recipes. If you're more experienced and have a good library already, this may not have any new information for you but it's still a very pretty book. 

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I received a complimentary copy of this book to review, I received no other compensation, and my review is my honest opinion of the book. You can read more about my review policy here.

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!