Elderberry and Rosehips Tincture

I've been reading blogs, Internet articles and books regarding herbal medicine. A majority of modern pharmaceuticals have their roots in some type of plant or plant property. We hear about nasty viruses on the news (H1N1, bird flu), but modern medicine is finding it harder to treat infections due to drug resistance, and medications don't do anything to treat viruses. Being the avid medical nut that I am, I decided to do some research to see what types of herbs, plants and essential oils work to treat colds, flu symptoms and viruses.

I've found several places online to order quality dried herbs, and my orders have been arriving this week - it felt like Christmas :) So far I've ordered from Bulk Herb Store and Apothecary Shoppe. Mountain Rose Herbs is another great source I'm looking forward to trying.

I've seen multiple different recipes on the Internet regarding elderberries and their benefits for cold and flu symptoms. WebMD talks about how elderberries can reduce flu symptoms by 50 percent and that the berries may have benefit against H1N1. The berries boost the immune system, fight inflammation and reduce swelling. Many varieties of elderberries are toxic, but Sambucus nigra is the variety used in medicinal remedies.

For my elderberry tincture, I also added dried rosehips. Rosehips contain vitamin C, which is always helpful during cold and flu season. Dried rosehips contain less vitamin C than fresh, but dried is what I had on hand. Making a tincture is really easy, although it takes time, so make sure you give yourself a few weeks to let the tincture develop before you need to use it.

Elderberry and Rosehips Tincture

1/2 pound dried elderberries
1 ounce dried elder flowers
6 ounces dried rosehips
Vodka (You can use rum, whiskey or even Everclear - must be 90 proof)

In a large glass jar, add the dried elderberries, elder flowers and rosehips. Add vodka to completely cover everything. Secure jar with a lid, and shake the mixture to completely soak the dried ingredients. Leave in a cool, dark place for 4 to 6 weeks to allow the tincture to develop.

After letting the tincture sit, strain the liquid through cheesecloth or a coffee filter, reserving the liquid and discarding all the dried berries. Pour into clean, sterile dark glass containers that have lids. Store in a cool place.

To Use Tincture:  Take 1 teaspoon of elderberry tincture 3 times a day when you first start to notice symptoms of a cold or the flu, and continue to take the tincture until symptoms are gone. Dilute the tincture in 8 ounces of water for easy drinking, or mix the tincture with a bit of honey (preferably raw local honey).

Canning 101: Sweet Honey Corn Relish

On a visit to my stepdaughter's a few years ago, I first tasted corn relish. That in itself is an amazing feat, considering I live in Iowa where corn is found everywhere in the summer. Since then, I've been on the hunt for a tasty corn relish that I could can and enjoy during the winter when fresh sweet corn isn't available.

I found this corn relish in one of my canning books, The Pickled Pantry: From Apples to Zucchini by Andrea Chesman (available on Amazon in print and Kindle editions), where I've found several delicious pickle and relish recipes. This one is a hit too.

The recipe says you'll end up with 5 pints. I followed the recipe exactly and got 7 pints.

Sweet Honey and Corn Relish

8 cups raw corn kernels (from 10 to 12 ears)
2 onions, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 to 1 1/2 cups honey
3 1/4 cups apple cider vinegar (5%)
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 tablespoon pickling or fine sea salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon ClearJel

Combine the corn, onions, green and red bell peppers, 1 cup of the honey, 3 cups of the apple cider vinegar, celery seeds, salt and cayenne pepper in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the honey.

Stir together the ClearJel and the remaining 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar until smooth. Stir into the corn mixture, and boil gently until thickened, about 5 minutes. Taste and add more honey if desired.

Ladle the hot relish into clean, hot pint-sized canning jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Remove any air bubbles, and seal.

Process jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Let cool undisturbed for 12 hours. Do not open for at least 6 weeks to allow the flavors to develop.

Yield:  5 pints

French Onion Soup

Soup is probably one of my most favorite things to make, and French onion soup is one of the best. It's easy to make, and I cook it on low in the crockpot for several hours until ready to finish in the oven and serve.

I got this recipe from my Dad. Years ago when I was in grade school we took a vacation to Canada and ended up eating dinner in a restaurant in the old section of Montreal. As I remember, Dad loved the French onion soup so much he wrote to Bon Appetit to get the recipe, and I've used it ever since.

There are hundreds of recipes out there for French onion soup. This one is very basic and simple, but it's absolutely delicious.

French Onion Soup

3 large sweet white onions, thinly sliced
8 cups beef broth (homemade is best or use a good quality beef cooking stock)
1 stick butter (not margarine)
1 teaspoon sugar
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 cup dry vermouth
French bread
Grated Gruyere cheese

In a crockpot, add the beef broth, and turn the crockpot to low.

In a large skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the thinly sliced onions, and cook slowly to caramelize the onions, stirring occasionally. You want to develop the flavors and sweetness of the onions, but you don't want them to overbrown.

When the onions are nicely caramelized, add salt and pepper to taste and the sugar to the onions. Stir until well combined. Add the flour to the onion mixture, and cook until the flour is nicely browned (as if making a roux).

Add the dry vermouth, and stir until the liquid is evaporated.

Add the onion mixture to the beef broth in the crockpot, scraping everything from the pan. Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

When ready to serve, preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Ladle the soup into ovenproof individual serving crocks. Place a slice of French bread on top of the soup, and cover the top of the bread with the grated Gruyere cheese. Place the soup crocks into the oven, and bake for approximately 7 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and bubbly.

Canning 101: Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage

When my sons were visiting their grandparents, they had dinner with friends of the family, and Shirley made a red cabbage salad. My boys were in hog heaven and asked if I could get the recipe (which I did - and it's awesome).

When going through my canning books, I stumbled across a recipe for red cabbage with apples that is really close to Shirley's recipe. This is an easy way to have a side dish ready to go when you're making pork or lamb for supper - all you have to do is open the jar, heat it through and serve.

Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage

4 1/2 pounds red cabbage

1/3 cup pickling salt

5 1/2 cups red wine vinegar (5%)

1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 1/4 pounds (about 4 to 5 medium) tart apples

1 3/4 cups (2 medium) chopped onions

Remove and discard bruised outer red cabbage leaves. Quarter, core and slice cabbage 1/2-inch thick. In a large bowl, toss cabbage with pickling salt until well combined. Cover, and let stand in a cool location for 24 hours. Rinse cabbage, drain and dry thoroughly on several layers of paper towels for 6 hours.

In a large stockpot, combine red wine vinegar, brown sugar and black pepper. Cover, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat, and simmer gently for 5 minutes, or until the brown sugar dissolves. Keep liquid hot while filling jars.

Just before filling jars, peel, core and shred the apples; treat to prevent browning. In a large bowl, toss together the red cabbage, apples and the onions.

Pack into prepared hot pint jars, and pour the hot brine over the vegetables, leaving 1/2-inch headspace. Process jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

Yield: 7 pints

Canning 101: Pickled Marinated Mushrooms

One of my goals with this blog is to keep track of recipes I've already tried or that I want to try but haven't gotten around to yet. This marinated mushroom recipe is one I haven't tried yet, but I love pickled mushrooms. I have so many different canning and preserving books and recipes, and I don't want to try to remember where I put the recipe when I'm ready to make it.

This recipe comes from The Home Preserving Bible by Carole Cancler. This book contains multiple terrific-sounding preserving recipes that I'm itching to try, but this marinated mushroom recipe caught my eye first. The book is available on Amazon (both the print and Kindle versions), and it's one I highly recommend to both newbie canners and seasoned canners alike, as it has a wealth of preserving information, not just canning but other various methods such as how to cure meats, fermentation, salt curing and more.

ETA: I made the recipe today, and while the recipe says it makes 7 half-pints, I ended up with 14 half-pints. I followed the recipe exactly, but perhaps the mushrooms I used were larger than the recipe author's. Just wanted you to know you may end up with more than 7 half-pints.

Pickled Marinated Mushrooms (raw pack only)

5 1/2 pounds small, whole button mushrooms
6 tablespoons bottled lemon juice
2 quarts water (or as needed)
1 1/2 cups olive or salad oil
2 cups white vinegar (5%)
6 tablespoons finely chopped onions
3 tablespoons diced red bell pepper or hot chilies
2 3/4 teaspoons oregano leaves
2 3/4 teaspoons dried basil leaves
2 3/4 teaspoons pickling salt
21 black peppercorns
2 garlic cloves, cut in quarters

Select fresh, unopened mushroom caps less than 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Wash in several changes of water until no more grit remains. Trim stems, leaving 1/4 inch attached to the cap.

In a saucepan, combine mushrooms, bottled lemon juice and water to cover, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Drain mushrooms.

In another saucepan, combine mushrooms, olive oil, white vinegar, onions, red bell pepper or chilies, oregano, basil and pickling salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and keep mixture hot while filling jars.

Before filling a hot jar with mushrooms, add 3 black peppercorns and 1 piece of garlic to each jar. Evenly distribute mushrooms and oil-vinegar brine between the jars, leaving 1/2-inch headspace.

Process mushrooms in a boiling water canner for 20 minutes.

Makes 7 half-pints

Canning 101: Vanilla Bourbon Peach Jam

After making some peach pie filling, I still had quite a few peaches left, so I decided to make some jam. Last year I made a peach honey jam, which was delicious, but I like a variety of different jams in my canning cupboard. I found this recipe on Sarah's Joys blog, so I thought I'd give it a try. Delicious!

The recipe calls for 8 cups of peaches. I had 12 cups of peaches left after making pie filling, so I made 1 1/2 the recipe below - with the exception of the bourbon. I left the bourbon at 1 tablespoon, as it's added simply to enhance the flavor of the vanilla, not to have a strong bourbon presence.

Vanilla Bourbon Peach Jam

8 cups peeled and chopped peaches
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 vanilla bean (or 1 to 2 teaspoons good vanilla extract)
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon good bourbon (optional)

Put the peaches, lemon juice and 2 cups sugar in a heavy-bottomed pot. Slice the vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Scrape out the seeds, and place in the pot along with the empty pod halves. (If using vanilla extract, add this to the peaches instead.)

Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. If using, add the bourbon. Simmer for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally, or until thickened to desired consistency.

Ladle hot jam into prepared jelly jars, discarding the vanilla bean pods. Process jam in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes.

Canning 101: Peach Pie Filling

Our four peach trees are overloaded this year with beautiful white peaches. They didn't produce any peaches last year, and the year before that a wind storm destroyed our other peach trees, just before the peaches were ready, of course. Usually these peaches are fairly small (the size of a large chicken egg), but we must have gotten rain at just the right times this year, because these are the largest peaches we've gotten. I picked a 5-gallon bucket of these beauties today.

I'd already canned peaches earlier in the year when I bought a couple lugs of Colorado peaches from the grocery store. The boys love to eat peaches straight from the jar, and that's what these are for. With our own peaches, however, I like to make jams and pie filling, so that's what I set out to do with these I picked today.

The recipe I used says it makes 7 quarts of pie filling, but I only got 6 quarts, probably because our peaches are smaller compared to what you normally find in the grocery store. They still make great pies, though.

Peach Pie Filling

6 quarts sliced peaches
7 cups sugar
2 cups plus 3 tablespoons ClearJel
5 1/4 cups cold water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 3/4 cup lemon juice
Additional 1/4 cup lemon juice or Fruit Fresh pectin

Place peaches in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds. Remove and place in ice cold water. Remove skins and pits, and slice peaches. To keep peaches from turning brown, mix in 1/4 cup lemon juice or Fruit Fresh pectin.

Combine water, sugar, ClearJel and cinnamon in a large stockpot. Stir and cook over medium-high heat until the mixture thickens and begins to bubble.

Add the 1 3/4 cup lemon juice, and boil the sauce for an additional minute, stirring constantly.

Add the sliced, drained peaches, and cook for 3 additional minutes.

Fill quart jars within 1 inch of the top. Place filled jars in a boiling water canner, and keep them covered with at least 1 inch of water. Process for 30 minutes.