Healing Wise

How to make a nourishing herbal infusion

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How to make a nourishing herbal infusion.
One ounce (30 grams) dried herb
* Always use dried herb
* Always weigh the herb
In a quart (liter) of boiling water.
* Always use boiling water
Tightly covered and steeped (off the heat) for 4-10 hours.
Refrigerate.
Drink a quart a day.

* Never use fresh herb, the cell walls are intact
* Never use a handful or a cup of herb, only a weighed ounce
* Never use aromatic herbs for infusion; a pinch may be added for flavoring

* Make in a jar or a pot.
For serious situations make in a jar.
* Consume hot, cold, or inbetween.
* Add anything to your infusion: honey, milk, lemon, whiskey, fruit juice, coffee. . .

* Treat infusions like blood
Infusions spoil rapidly due to high protein content.
Infusions need to be kept cold after brewing.
Making large amounts requires a way to cool the pot rapidly.

* Put spent herb in your compost pile.
Or broadcast it across your lawn.
Or mulch your house plants with it.
Or give it to a favorite tree.
Spoiled infusion is fertilizer for plants.

Learn more! Sign up for this five-session series that will give you everything you need to be juicier, happier, and healthier.
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8 great ways to eat Garlic

8 great ways to eat Garlic
Short and sweet and quick to eat.

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1. Garlic Toast: Mince a garlic clove. Toast a piece of whole wheat bread. Butter it. Add the minced garlic. Eat.
2. Garlic Dip: Mix 1-3 teaspoons of granulated or powdered garlic and ¼ teaspoon salt into ½ cup yogurt and ½ cup cream cheese. Spread on crackers or use as a dip with chips.
3. Garlic Greens: Cook a pot of greens for at least one hour. While the greens are still hot, add 2-6 cloves thinly-sliced or minced garlic, 2 tablespoons olive oil, and 1 tablespoon tamari or miso. Eat hot or cold.
4. Garlic Honey: Put unpeeled (Important! Leave peels on!) fresh garlic cloves in a small jar. Cover completely with honey. Lid and label. Ready to use in 24 hours.
5. Garlic Vinegar: Fill a jar with your choice of whole or cut fresh garlic or garlic scapes or flowers. Fill jar to the top with apple cider vinegar. Use a non-metal lid; plastic, glass, rubber, cork are fine. Ready to use in 7 days.
6. Forever Garlic Vinegar: As above, but pasteurize the vinegar first by boiling it briefly in a non-metal pot, then cooling completely before pouring over garlic. This vinegar will stay good for up to five years, as opposed to the previous vinegar, which is good for no more than 6 months.
7. Garlic Oil: Mince fresh garlic and add to a small jar of extra virgin olive oil. Lid and label. Ready to use in 24 hours Do not use in food after a month, but okay to use as an antifungal on your feet or other places if it gets too old.
8. Garlic Tonic: Mix together equal parts garlic honey and garlic vinegar. Put in a dropper bottle and take by the dropperful, as needed, to prevent or treat colds/flu.

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Dried Tomato Pate

Dried Tomato Pate.

Spread on crackers, spoon into soup, add to omelets.
excerpt from Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines

Pack dried tomatoes into a one-cup measure.
Add boiling water to just barely cover.
When tomatoes are soft, strain out the soaking liquid; save.
Put half the tomatoes in a blender or Cuisinart mini-prep.
Add ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil.
Add 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped.
Add a little sea salt
Blend well.
Add the rest of the soaked tomatoes.
Add 1-2 more cloves of chopped garlic.
Add a little more salt.
And enough olive oil or soaking liquid to enable blending.
Blend very well.

You can eat this immediately or keep it in a tightly covered jar in the refrigerator for up to a month.

excerpt from Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines
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Make an Herbal Vinegar

Make an Herbal Vinegar
excerpt from Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines

Use herbal vinegars on salads, in marinades, on beans, on greens.
Dandelion leaf/root/flower vinegar prevents heartburn.
Mint vinegar aids digestion.
Garlic vinegar builds immunity.
Burdock root vinegar clears the skin, improves memory.
Blueberry vinegar prevents cancer, dementia.

Fill any size jar to the top with cut-up pieces of fresh, just harvested herb, then add pasteurized vinegar, right to the top of the jar.
Use any lid but a metal one. Label.
Ready to use in six weeks.
Vinegar concentrates minerals; builds bones.
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excerpt from Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines:
www.wisewomanbookshop.com/product-page/abundantly-well-seven-medicines
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Mint Honeys

Mint Honeys

Fill a jar with fresh mint, best if you cut it fairly fine.
Pour real honey over the herb in the jar.
After you have filled your jar with fresh herb and honey, put a tight lid and a label on it.
Then the hard part: Wait for six or more weeks.

Once your hardy mint honey is ready, you need only scoop a large spoonful of the herb and honey into a cup, fill with boiling water and drink.

Wow! Instant herb tea.
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www.wisewomanmentor.com/recipe-archive/mint-honeys
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Goji berries

Goji berries!

Goji berries are very healthy for the eyes, are loaded with nutrition and packed with vitamins.

Learn more about Goji berries in the online course - Adaptogens: Herbs for Energy, Longevity, and Optimum Health.
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Maitake mushrooms

Maitake mushrooms

Susun prepares and cooks up Maitake mushrooms.

 

Nourish Immunity with Food

Winter Wellness
Nourish Immunity with Food

Sauerkraut: A spoonful daily is the best preventative of colds and the flu. If you didn't make it last fall, it's not too late to do it now. It's ready to eat in a few days. Store bought doesn't work as it has been pasteurized.

Ginger: has shown activity against numerous infectious pathogens. Most notably, fresh ginger inhibits viruses that commonly cause respiratory infections.

Garlic: has been used to prevent infection for thousands of years; and it still works! No need to upset your stomach (and loved ones) by eating it raw; cooked garlic retains its antibacterial powers, so long as you eat enough of it. During plague times, some healers wore a stiff cone of paper or bark stuffed with garlic and spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg) tied over the nose to ward off contagion. That's a little cumbersome for modern times, but inhaling the aroma of a cup of spicy chai tea sweetened with garlic honey could help you stay well.

Read the rest here ...

 

Mullein infusion

Mullein infusion

To brew mullein infusion, I fill a quart canning jar about half full of cut and crushed mullein leaf and stalk pieces. (If using commercial herb, I use one ounce by weight.) I fill the jar to the top with boiling water, cap tightly, and let it sit at room temperature for four hours, or overnight.

Mullein leaves are fuzzy, and mullein infusion can be too. To protect my throat, I always strain my mullein infusion through tightly-woven cloth (like a handkerchief) before drinking. The dose of mullein infusion is 1-4 cups a day.

Mullein infusion will last for 5-6 days refrigerated. It brews up to a dark brown liquid with a smoky flavor that I find quite appealing, especially with milk and honey.

To relieve acute lung problems, such as bronchitis, pneumonia, SARS, even coughs, 2-4 cups of mullein infusion a day, plus elecampane, echinacea, and/or poke root tinctures are consumed until health has returned. To strengthen the lungs, or to restore health to lung tissues after "assaults" such as tobacco smoke or radiation: 1-2 cups of mullein infusion daily for six weeks is suggested. To relieve allergies and asthma, 2-4 cups of mullein infusion every day for 6-8 weeks is amazingly effective.

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Foods that Lower Blood Pressure.

Foods that Lower Blood Pressure.

Fruits: apple, banana, blueberry, cranberry, fig, grape, orange, pomegranate.

Vegetables: beets, broccoli, celery, dandelion greens, garlic, mushrooms, parsley, potatoes, seaweed, spinach.

Drinking eight ounces (a cup) of beetroot juice a day decreases blood pressure about as quickly and about as much as most drugs. It is loaded with nitrate, which turns into nitric oxide in the body. Nitro widens blood vessels and increases blood flow.

Read the rest of this article:

www.wisewomanmentor.com/wisdom-archive/foods-that-lower-blood-pressure

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External Uses of Infusions

External Uses of Infusions
What to do when your infusions are past safe for drinking.

A soak consists of an infusion that has been rewarmed after the plant material has been strained out. The affected body part is then soaked in the warm infusion.

If you soak your feet in an herbal infusion, it's a foot bath, an excellent way to soothe and heal the entire body, and absorb herbal benefits.

A sitz bath is a big soak! Two or more quarts of infusion are usually needed to fill a shallow bowl or pan big enough for you to "sitz" in.

A bath is an enormous soak, like steeping your body in an infusion. You can prepare an herbal bath by putting the herbs directly in the tub, but my plumber made it clear to me that herbs and drains are incompatible. Some herbals say to put the herbs in a cloth and allow the bath water to run over them but I find the resulting bath too weak. If you want a strong herbal bath, try it this way: Infuse two quarts of your favorite bath herb, strain, and add the liquid to your hot bath. Ahhhhh!

Read the rest here:
www.wisewomanmentor.com/recipe-archive/external-uses-of-infusions

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Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Nutmeg

Cinnamon, Cardamom, and Nutmeg

 

The aroma of winter is wood smoke and evergreen. But winter holidays smell spicy. Herbs that grow only in the tropics — such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, allspice, and vanilla — are called spices. Their aromatic oils and volatile esters entice us with delicious smells and mouth-watering tastes. And spices warm us from the inside, as if we had ingested the tropical sun on a cold day. Spices help preserve food and counter a variety of illnesses, too. Come, sit and warm your feet by the fire. Close your eyes and imagine the dense green forests where aromatic spices grow. ..

* A cup of Cinnamon tea .. eases menstrual cramps, soothes sore joints, relieves gas pain, and allays that feeling of fullness after a big meal. A sip or two of cinnamon tea before meals improves digestion and prevents acid reflux. Those who drink cinnamon tea regularly will have less cavities, stronger gums, and fewer insect bites.
* Chewing cardamom seeds freshens the breath and improves digestion. Herbalists consider cardamom effective for helping the liver, the appetite, the stomach, and the intestines.
* Modern medicine validates Nutmeg’s ability to inhibit diarrhea and slow down the action of the gastrointestinal tract. Folk medicine agrees, using nutmeg against diarrhea, dysentery, inflammation of the mucus membranes, flatulence, and vomiting. Nutmeg has also been shown to effect prostaglandin synthesis and to be a particularly potent antimicrobial. It may also be anti-rheumatic.

Green blessing are everywhere, especially in your spice chest.
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Happy Holidays!
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Nettle Sesame Salt

Nettle Sesame Salt

A delicious low-salt seasoning

1 cup/250ml sesame seeds
1/4 cup/60ml dried nettle

Roast sesame in heavy pan over medium heat. Stir constantly to prevent scorching. When browned to your liking, pour into blender or mortar with a pinch of salt and nettle leaves. Grind fairly fine.

Preparation time: 10 minutes.
This disappears as fast as I can make it. Superb on salads and cooked grains.

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Oat Tart with Date Filling

Oat Tart with Date Filling
by Juliette de Bairacli Levy

Filling: Two pounds stoned dates, one orange, one lemon (small).
Grate the peels off the orange and lemon, then squeeze out all the juice. Pour the juice over the dates in a pan and heat over low heat for about ten minutes until the dates have softened. Now mix the grated peels into this and set aside to cool.

Oat crust: four ounces butter, one tablespoon maple syrup, one cup milk, two cups flaked oats, half cup flour, half cup sugar.
Melt the butter, then add the syrup and the milk. Mix the dry ingredients separately. Finally, add the two mixtures together, mixing very completely to prevent lumpiness.

Grease a round baking tin, spread the oat crust in the bottom and cook for about twenty minutes at 350°F until a light brown color. When semi-cooked take from oven, press up the sides of the crust with a spoon, to make a low wall for the date filling. Now add filling into the tart and bake for a further ten minutes.
When still warm and soft, cut up into triangular portions of the typical tart shape. Allow the tart to set before removing the portions from the baking tin.

Excerpt from Juliette de Bairacli Levys Nature's Children.

Wise Woman Bookshop Sale on Juliette de Bairacli Levy's books, Ends tomorrow!

Buy Two Get One Free!
Use coupon code: JULIETTE2022

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Sale Ends 10/8/2022
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Dried Tomato Pate

Dried Tomato Pâté  
{excerpt from: Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines}

Spread on crackers, spoon into soup, add to omelets.

* Pack dried tomatoes into a one-cup measure.
* Add boiling water to just barely cover.

When tomatoes are soft, strain out the soaking liquid; save.
Put half the tomatoes in a blender or Cuisinart mini-prep.

* Add ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil.
* Add 1-2 cloves garlic, chopped.
* Add a little sea salt

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Read the rest of this recipe here:
www.wisewomanmentor.com/recipes-2

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