Healing Wise

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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Chickweed Poultice

Chickweed Poultice

*Apply the fresh herb, washed, directly onto sores, closed eyes, wounds.
or *Cook the greens and stalks, especially when using older plants or treating deeply; cool somewhat before applying.
or *Simmer chickweed in half water, half vinegar for about five minutes, cool and apply.

Then cover chickweed with a cotton towel or a thin layer of clay, and poultice for five minutes to three hours. Replace when poultice feels hot to the touch and oozes. (Yes, hot! Though most poultices are applied warm and removed when they cool, chickweed poultices actually heat up as they draw out infection and heat.)
Relief often begins within a few hours of the initial application, with pain and swelling diminishing steadily as treatments continue.
Poultices used on infections, such as pinkeye, must be thrown away after use. Poultices used on clean wounds and unbroken skin can be reused several times if chickweed is in short supply.
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Excerpt from Healing Wise
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Plantain Ointment

Plantain Ointment

Pick Plantago leaves when they are vibrant and green. Chop them coarsely and pack loosely into a clean, very dry jar. Add olive oil, dislodge air bubbles with a knife or chopstick until the jar is filled to the very top. label and cap securely. Let sit out of direct sunlight, on a surface that won't be marred by oozing oil.

Decant after six weeks, pouring off the oil and squeezing out what remains in the plant material. Discard the herb. Grate one tablespoon of beeswax for every ounce of oil. Stirring constantly, heat the oil and beeswax until the wax melts, usually within a minute. Pour the liquid into small, wide-mouthed jars (a good excuse for buying marinated artichoke hearts) and cool.
Use this ointment lavishly for diaper rash, insect bites, all itches, and minor wounds. It heals, stops itching, checks bleeding, and eases pain.
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Excerpt from Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year.
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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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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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Winter edible weed: Cronewort

Winter edible weed:  Cronewort (Artemisia vulgaris)

The little leaves of my friend cronewort (AKA mugwort), minced, will add a savory, slightly bitter bite to our salad. Just a few will do the trick. Yes, you can still make a cronewort vinegar, with leaves or roots and leaves, if you can find young growth, which is generally easy.

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Elder Remedies

Elder Remedies

Cold and flu season is approaching. Here's some Elder remedies to help keep you healthy.

* Dried Elder Berry Tincture
Fill any size jar no more than half full of dried elder berries. Fill jar to the top with 100 proof vodka. Cap, label, wait for six weeks, and use.

* Dried Elder Berry Infusion
Put 1-2 ounces of dried berries in a quart jar and fill to the top with boiling water. Steep overnight. Drink it, a half cup at a time, or turn it into a decoction.

* Dried Elder Berry Decoction
Pour a quart of infusion, berries and all, into a saucepan and gently simmer until the liquid is reduced by one-half or more. In other words, you want to wind up with 1-2 cups of decoction. The decoction may be taken by the teaspoonful. It keeps best if refrigerated. Or make a syrup with your decoction.

* Dried Elder Berry Syrup
When you have reduced it as much as you wish, add sweetener. A classic syrup contains as much sweetener as herbal liquid. So you could add a cup of honey or maple syrup or white sugar to one cup of elder berry decoction. Syrups need to be refrigerated.

* Dried Elder Berry Glycerite
Buy glycerin at the drugstore or health food store. Dilute it by at least half with sterile water. Dilutions as low as one part glycerin to four parts water will work. Fill a jar no more than half full of dried elder berries. Fill the jar to the top with the diluted glycerin. The resulting glycerite is ready to use, by the dropperful, in 6 weeks.

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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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Goldenrod (Solidago species)

Goldenrod (Solidago species)

I like to make a jar or two of goldenrod vinegar as a fall tonic. The taste is earth-y and pollen-y and sunshine-y.

The goldenrod is a late fall favorite of so many insects, I figure it must offer something special to help us all through the winter that’s ahead.

While goldenrod flowers do sometimes find their way into my salads, I find their texture less than friendly.

Skullcap tincture

Skullcap tincture

Susun talks to a caller on blogtalkradio about skullcap. She explains how to make the tincture and talks about the plants properties and it's use as an anti-viral for Lyme.
This audio is just under 4:00 minutes long.

 

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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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Plantain Honey

Plantain Honey
Used to counter coughs and improve digestion.

* Harvest vibrant green plantain leaves at any time of their growth.
* Chop them finely and fill a jar with the fresh chopped leaves.
* Slowly pour honey over the leaves.
* Stir it a bit with a chop stick and add more honey.
* Let it sit overnight and add more honey until it is really full.
* Wipe the jar. Label.

You can begin to use it in a few weeks, but optimum strength is achieved in six weeks.
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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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Edible weeds

Edible weeds

 

Some of my favorite edible weeds:

• Burdock (Arctium lappa) Roots of non-flowering plants harvested after frost make a vinegar that is deep, and richly flavorful as well as a world-renowned tonic. Petioles of the leaves and the flowering stalk are also edible; for recipes see my book Healing Wise.

• Chickweed (Stellaria media) Young leaves and stalks, even flowers, in salads. Blend with virgin olive oil and organic garlic for an unforgettable pesto. Add seeds to porridge.

• Dandelion (Taraxacum officinalis) Leaves eaten at any time, raw or cooked, but especially tasty in the fall – not spring!. Roots harvested any time; pickle in apple cider vinegar for winter use. Dandelion flower wine is justly famous.

• Garlic Mustard (Alliaria officinalis) Year-round salad green. Leaves used in any season, even winter. Roots are harvested before plant flowers. Seeds are a spicy condiment.

• Lamb's quarter (Chenopodium alba and related species, e.g. Chenopodium quinoa). Young leaves in salads. Older leaves and tender stalks cooked. Leaves dried and ground into flour (replaces up to half the flour in any recipe). Seeds dried and cooked in soups, porridge.

• Purslane (Portulacca oleracea) The fleshy leaves and stalks of this plant are incredibly delicious in salads and not bad at all preserved in vinegar for winter use.

• Sheep Sorrel (Rumex acetosella) Leaves add a sour spark to salads. Cooked with wild leeks or cultivated onion and potato they become a soup called "schav."

• Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica) Young leaves cooked for 40-45 minutes and served in their broth are one of my favorite dishes. Seeds can be used in baked goods, porridge.

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