Cherry Glutton

Cherry season came and went and now I am mourning the taste of the fresh ones snatched from the tree with my stained fingers. We found quite a few trees in the wild this year as Papie's tree was infested with worms as were two other wild trees that I found. Those big ripe cherries looked perfect from the outside, a deep dark red but on the inside was a maggot wiggling around. I picked quick a few of these bitter tasting (the worm makes them bitter) maggot filled cherries for the chickens who would fight each other for the surprise protein filled cherry.

But my shelves are lined up for the year with cherry syrups, cherry jams and jellies (sour and black cherry varieties), eau de vie, cherry bounce and about four kilos of nice dark almost black cherries pitted in the freezer.

Pie Cherries, or as the French call them: Griottes (sour cherries) are good for digestion troubles and reduce fevers. It's what you make kirsch with- you leave in the stems and pits, the jams are delightful with a tang, and girotte ice creams is one of my favorites. You can also cook griottes into sweet and savory dishes.

Save some of the leaves for your pickle making, they keep the pickles crunchy and you can make a tea with the leaves and stems for urinary problems

Speaking of saving, you should save the pits too. Pits saved for Cherry Pit Ice Cream and homemade Cherry Pit-Hot/Cold Packs

And for making cherry claufotis. I also make this with yellow plums and apricots. For the true French way of making clafoutis, you leave the pits in. This makes the dish stay firm and not water laden like with the cherries pitted (if you do that you'll have to add cornstarch to the batter). it also gives the dessert (or breakfast food for me) a hint of almond. Makes you eat slowly and carefully too.

3/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
1/4 cup sugar or honey or natural sweetener of your choice
3/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Clafoutis Batter: In your food processor or blender place all the batter ingredients. Process for about 45 - 60 seconds, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Once the batter is completely smooth, let it rest while you prepare the fruit.


1 pound fresh sweet cherries--- leave the pits in
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Butter your dish and then layer cherries into the dish and then pour the batter over the top. Bake for 55 minutes in a hot oven. Serve warm or cold the next day for breakfast.


To make cherry bounce you need: sugar, vodka and cherries. shake well, wait ten days. enjoy!

rose petal jam

jellies, jams, confitures, you name it i have been making it. i dont really eat a lot of bread and jam, but cheese and jam together is pure heaven and these bottles of goodness are great for bartering and gift giving. rose petal jam was my first one this spring and then quickly followed was strawberry, then rhubarb, and now i am in the thick of cherries (sweet and sour ones).

these are rose petals from an old style rose bush, a neighbor who does not use any pesticides. she let me have her blooms to make this wonderful jam. then i use the jars to trade for other goods like this neighbor's bread (in the above photo) and some wonderful serrano ham from another neighbor, also got some eggs from a local lady in exchange and it maked a wonderful anniversary gift for a friend. the scent of heady roses is reminicent of pure love and heaven on earth. you can also make vinegar, honey and rose water with your fragrant rose petals. this jam recipe is a basic one that you can use for just about any kind of fruit or edible flower.

how to make rose petal jam:
find pesticide free, heavily scented rose petals. the old style ones seem to have the most flavor. (those flower shop ones just won't do)
soak the rose petals in water over night
add equal amount of sugar to weight of drained petals
crush them up in a blender
add some lemon juice
let them sit over night
boil into jelly (three minutes rapid boil), add pectin, boil one minute more and pour into clean, sterilized jars

Elder Flowers

Years ago, way before I learned how to cook more than basic recipes- although I had a strong interest, I saw in a fancy gourmet shop in Paris: Syrup of Sureau. I had no idea what it was but it was calling out to me in it's pretty packaged bottle worthy of an expensive perfume. Its lovely pale yellow elixir with a promise of healing what ails you shouted "buy me" but I was incredibly poor, still am, so I had to put that dream bottle on the back shelf of my mind.

In my new town, a little tiny southern French village, I see Elderflowers at each turn, their heavenly scent fills the warm spring air. This is Sureau. Sambucus nigra, Black Elder. We have a big one growing in the chicken garden where I plan to put an outdoor table and chairs. Right when they are at their full boom, you can pick them and make wonderful syrups for coughs and colds or you can fry them in crepe batter for fritters or as our local walking weed woman told me, dip the flower bouquets in caramel like you would with apples for a special treat. I made a fizzy drink, an alcohol free champagne with my first batch and after tasting it, quickly ran out to the garden to get eight more bunches to make another batch of Elderflower Champagne.

Dubbed by some as “the medicine chest of the country folk” or in France, “poorman’s vanilla”, extracts from the elders bark, leaves, flowers, fruits and root were used to treat every ailment from burns to respiratory problems and flu’s. In fact, just recently lab tests have suggested that “Sambucol” a herbal remedy that contains an extract of elderberries could well be effective in neutralizing the infection properties of the H5N1 bird flu virus.

All the fertilized flowers become fruits by the end of summer, into juicy dark purple, almost black, berries. The drooping clusters of individual fruits has been used to add flavour and colour to wine, jams, sauces and chutneys, however be aware that when uncooked they have been known to cause stomach upsets in some people.

I'll be making the above mentioned as well as keeping some of the scented leaves of the elder which can be rubbed on the skin and hair to keep away flies. I want to try my hand and making an extracts of elder flowers to be using in homemade lotions and skin cleansers. And since I have a few grey hairs sprouting, I'll be using the the berries which yield brown, blue and purple dyes, with the black dye used for darkening grey hair.

Elderflower Champagne


8 litres (2 gallons) water
1.25 kg (2.5 lbs/5 cups) sugar
8 large elderflower heads (try and cut out the green bitter stems)
4 Lemons
4 tablespoons mild white wine vinegar (or more lemon juice or one teaspoon of citric acid)

Dissolve the sugar in boiling water.

Cool and add the elderflowers, juice of the two lemons, slices of the other two and the vinegar.

Cover with a cloth and leave for a day.

Strain with a fine sieve or muslin cloth, squeezing the flowers as you do to release more flavour.

Store in screw top bottles

It will be ready in about 10 days to a fortnight and should be drunk within a month.

Edible Flowers

There are lots of edible flowers. We have really enjoyed the violets and now we are digging in to eat a lot of redbuds. Tangy and tart, great on salads and fried into fritters. April is a wonderful time, these are some of local edible flowers in our area that seems to be all a shade of mauve or violet: redbud, red valerian (goat beard), borage, periwinkle, lavender, purple clover, wisteria (only the flowers are edible), lilac (made a batch of lilac wine), rosemary flowers, summer savory flowers, thyme florettes, and chive flowers. Soon we will be on to May where the flowers are a lovely shade of pink like roses, apple blossoms, peonies, snapdragons, peach blossoms, hollyhock, hibiscus, and honeysuckle. Another good reason to take walks in search of edible blooms, but leave some for the fruit to form and for the bees!

Bourbon Beef Jerky

Bourbon, maple syrup, a little hot jalapeno sauce zing. Beef Jerky!

After, one bite of my experimental homemade beef jerky over the hearth, I ran to freezer to get another nice steak to make another batch. A bigger batch. It’s that good, the perfect snack food and no preservatives or fake meat or who knows what goes into commercial jerky. It’s a great way to preserve meat without refrigeration. If our power ever goes out, I’ll make jerky with all of our meat that we have tucked away in the freezer.

How to make Bourbon Beef Jerky:

Use a lean meat, beef brisket, flank steak, etc. I used a faux filet which I think is a new york tenderloin from our organic beef order. We got a ¼ of a beef including most of the offal (yes, I made a 24 hour slow braised beef heart in the hearth and it was fabulous). This basic jerky recipe works well for turkey, salmon and other meats and fish. My father makes his jerky with deer and elk meat over the campfire.

The marinade:

Maple Syrup or Dark Brown Sugar if you don’t have maple syrup, a drizzle

Soy Sauce- a few tablespoons

Worcestershire Sauce –a few tablespoons

Hot Sauce, a squirt or more depending on how hot you like it, fresh hot peppers are great!

(if you have it and I don’t, you can add a teaspoon of liquid smoke, though I cook over the open fire so it naturally gets a smokey flavor. I use grape vines and cherry wood for all my meat smoking and it lends a wonderful flavor to bacon and hams as well)

Molasses, a drizzle

Bourbon, a shot (or any other alcohol that you like, sherry is nice)

Garlic cloves, chopped or garlic powder but fresh is better

Course ground black pepper

Add whatever other flavors you would like: grated ginger, honey, pineapple, wasabi, teriyaki sauce, black tea? Or? Just don’t add any oils or fats.

It’s easiest to cut the meat if it’s almost frozen. A good trick for when you make carpaccio too (I’ll be doing that soon since we have a ton of roquette in the garden and really a lot of this beef order). I defrosted one of our beef steaks, but you can also pop a fresh steak in the freezer for an hour or more beforehand to get it firm enough to cut. Trim off the fat, try to get pure meat slices and as thin as you can cut them.

Marinate them for at least two and up to four days in the sauce above (for fish only marinate for a day or two, gamier meats need longer marinating). Put it in the fridge or a just a cold room. I use a Tupperware square container, or a bowl covered with a plate, but a plastic zip bag works great too so you can shake the meat once in awhile to make sure the marinade is coating all the meat.

I dry it near the flame, but not touching, on a grill in our hearth. A couple of hours is all it took to dry to chewy perfection. You don’t want to cook the meat, just gently dry it out. You can also use an oven on really low heat, a smoker or a food dehydrator to dry your jerky.

Drying times vary due to many things such as fire heat, oven differences and meat size. Perfect jerky is firm and dry and not at all spongy. However, if your jerky is so dry it breaks in two easily, it's probably over-dried. The nice thing about sitting around the fire, is that you'll smell the wonderful aromas and you can test the jerky so that it doesn't dry out on you. I usually have a few pans in the fire at the same time so I linger over the flame often, adjusting and fiddling with the fire.

kombucha

What's brewing? "Immortal Health Elixir!" Kombucha has an acidy- sparkly kick And it's good for you to drink; a curative for many things especially the spleen. It also causes mild euphoria, followed by relaxation, and an overall sense of physical and mental well-being. A shot morning and night is a restorative.

Each week, I make our own Kombucha drinks, even the baby loves drinking this!

Brewing Kombucha: what is it? A sweetened tea that ferments by a macroscopic solid mass of microorganisms called a Kombucha mushroom, or "SCOBY" consisting of Acetobacter-species and yeast cultures that transforms into a health drink that you can make at home for almost nothing! Once you have a starter (SCOBY) you can brew your own over and over. It tastes like a sweet apple cider vinegar. sweet and sour like lemon soda pop with fizz. The tea is no longer caffinated, it has been converted. The sugar is no longer sugar it has been converted into yeasts! You can use different teas (as long as one of them is a nitrogen tea- not tisanes or herbal) to get different tastes. I also use honey in place of normal sugar to a mead like kombucha.

How do you make it?

Brew a strong tea first: I use all kinds of teas, lapsang sujong, chinese black teas, the trick is to brew it strong. Kombucha grows off the nitrogen in the tea leaves. Use a glass jar to hold the tea.

Then add sugar. I also use honey and/or sugar, I dissolve the sugar or honey in the tea first and then let it cool down to body temp. Then add your mother starter when it's cool to body temperature and a little bit of the last bew of Kombucha to start the acidity. Do not seal the jar, just cover with a tea cloth or cheese cloth so it can breathe. My brew is generally for 5-8 days and it's kept above the stove to it is at 20 C all the time. It becomes super sparkley. Taste as you go, if it's too sugary, than it's not ready yet. It should be sweet and sour and kind of acid like apple cider vinegar. After you brew it, then bottle with a cork and let it sit longer to add more sparkle. Not in a warm place, in the fridge is perfect.

*In filtration, processing and cleaning I never use any metal.

* The water I am using for preparing the tea has no significant levels of copper, nitrate or chlorine. The water for preparing the tea has to have no taste at all and it needs to be fresh.

* The longer you let it grow without changing the tea the more sour it will be, provided it is growing at room temperature or slightly below. If it's too warm the bubbly stuff will just not stay. Usually I brew for five days, then bottle with a cork to let the fizz double

I have heard that you can eat the mushroom, I have four or five of them now though i usually chuck them into the compost or bag them up to give to friends. So, I made a Panko crusted Scoby! It tasted like tart vinegar and has the texture of shoe leather. It might be better to dry it out and make slippers.

why should you drink Kombucha?

-strengthens the Immune system

- creates more space, and allows more light to be in the cells

- helps with the bodies awakening and transformation

- detoxifies, cleansing the blood

- heals and strengthens the Digestive tract

- plays a vital role in regenerating bowel flora

- lengthens the life span

- is a health remedy against chickenpox and shingles

- reduces the formation of wrinkles

- discourages the formation of cancer

- prevents adverse menopausal symptoms

- restores visual acuity

- strengthens leg muscles

- heals arthritis

- enhances sexual drive

- heals sweaty feet, constipation, joint and back pains

- heals abscesses

- heals blocked arteries and diabetes

- strengthens kidneys

- heals cataracts and heart disease

- restores the appetite and heals sleeping disorders

- reduces the chance of gall stones and liver problems

- reduces obesity and stops diarrhea

- heals hemorrhoids

- helps to restore color to gray hair and improves baldness

- encourages body rejuvenation

For making your own flavors, make Kombucha as per normal, after five days, bottle and then add homemade syrup (this one is cherry syrup). Then let it marry for a few days in the fridge. Open up over a sink (just in case, the fog in the bottle is CO2 gas) and enjoy your own homemade good for you, soda pop!

Violets

After a non-self imposed break from the internet, I am back just in time for Spring. Napolean said he would return in Spring in time for the Violets.

"You and your violets again," the neighbors chided me as I scooped up handfuls of these fragrant purple flowers to make lotions, syrups and then when I passed around the crystallized violets their interest was piqued. "Ah, that is what you have been making!" They couldn't get enough of them. The sweet violet flavor promises Spring and you can see it in their pretty faces.

Plus, violets are high in iron, calcium, and anti-oxidants.

"Johnny Jump Ups" literally jump up in the spring (Viola rafinesquii.)
Native Americans had various medicinal uses for some 17 species of violets. They used violets as poultices for headaches and boils, as an infusion for dysentery, kidney problems, bladder issues, heart pain, colds and coughs (they are high in vitamins A and C too.)

Violet roots can clean you out with their laxative effects. The Indians soaked them with corn seeds as a pre-planting insecticide.

Apparently all species including the garden varieties, are edible. Though you should not gather ones that have been treated with chemicals. Young leaves and flower buds are used raw for salads in the spring and young leaves in the late summer.

Often used to thicken soups, especially in the south where violets may be called wild okra. I added handfuls of leaves to our soups and stews over the course of a few weeks. And many leaves are drying now, so I can use them later.

Flowers can be candied like rose petals. Beat an egg white with a touch of water and dip each flower in the egg white and then dip into sugar and let them dry.

Violets have been used to flavor vinegar for ages just add as many flowers as you can spare into a bottle, then pour in white vinegar.

Their leaves make a good tea substitute. Long boiling does not make the tea bitter. The tea has a gentle laxative effect and cures insomnia. The leaves have an aspirin-like substance that can help with handovers, headaches and neck pain. It is said that cancer can be cured by an infusion of violet leaves.

Any species of viola is worth trying with some being better than others. 1 teaspoon of violet flowers boiled for 3 minutes in 1 cup of water and then strain. Take this twice daily on an empty stomach for treating colds. With this infusion, I made a healing violet hand lotion with beeswax and Argan oil. Violet leaves, flowers and oils are featured in many Islamic healing formulas.

Syrup of violets consists of a quart of freshly picked flowers steeped in a quart of cold water until the color and flavor are absorbed into the water. The liquid is then strained and 4 pounds of sugar added for each quart of fluid. Gradually the liquid is brought to a boil and simmered until it forms a thick syrup. This is great for coughs and relaxing. I put a tablespoon of violet syrup in our toddlers milk at night and finally, she sleeps all night long now.

A violet conserve like jam was made in the old days from flower petals beaten to a smooth paste with twice their weight in sugar, and then potted and sealed. But I enjoy the crystalized flowers too much to waste them in a jam jar.

Violet honey is enchanting. Mix a handful of petals was mixed with a jar of ordinary honey and heat in a double boiler, careful not to boil the honey, until the mixture acquires the flavor of violets.

A toilet water tonic, which gives a fragrant scent to the body when applied after bathing, can be made from 2 ounces of violet petals to one pint of vinegar. The ingredients should be placed in a container and stood in a warm place, ideally in sunlight, for two weeks, then strained and bottled.

Pliny referred to the violet's excellent properties, believing that the odor of some species cured headaches, and that healing virtues existed in the leaves and flowers. In the Middle Ages, the flower was quite extensively used in medicine. A powder produced from the dried petals and taken in water was used to counteract epilepsy, quinsy, pleurisy, jaundice and sleeplessness. A poultice of flowers and leaves was applied to the forehead to relieve headaches. Pound the leaves into a paste, adding water and oatmeal as needed, then apply to a warm compress and place on the back of the neck. This also works for the pain of rheumatism when applied to the affected area