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
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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Malva leaves, flowers, and seed pods (Malva neglecta)
This mallow is prostrate and so often overlooked. All parts of it are delicious in salads: leaves, flowers, and seeds. The seeds look like a little gouda cheese, thus giving the plant its common name: cheeses. All members of malva family are edible, including hibiscus, rose of Sharon (Northern hibiscus), hollyhocks, and the numerous cultivars that are available.
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Herbal Flower Wine
Equipment you will need:
6 or more 750ml wine bottles (reused is fine, no need to buy)
8 or more real corks of a size to fit your bottles (reused is fine, no need to buy)
1 or 2 wire-porcelain-closure beer bottles (reused is fine, no need to buy)
1 food thermometer
1 two-gallon crock or large, non-metallic container
1 thin cotton or linen kitchen towel capable of covering the opening of the container
1 rubber band adequate to the circumference of the container
3-6 filters of some sort, coffee filters will do, as will thin, clean, natural-fiber material
12 balloons
12 sticky-back labels and a water-proof marker (such as a Sharpie)
A cool, still place away from light and heat to age your wine
Pick 3-5 quarts/liters of blossoms and green part appending to them of any edible flower (I have used dandelion, wild carrot, red clover, violet, even yarrow). ....
Read the article for full instructions:
www.wisewomanmentor.com/recipes-2
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Comfrey in Water
Water extracts many important plant constituents including minerals, proteins, sugars, starches, polyphenols, volatiles, and vitamins. Some alkaloids are extracted by water, including allantoin and PAs.
Water-based remedies include, teas, infusions, decoctions, poultices, compresses, soaks, baths, and fomentations.
I use comfrey leaf internally and externally.
I use comfrey root externally only.
Comfrey Leaf Tea: steep 1-3 teaspoons of fresh or dried comfrey leaf in a cup of boiling water for 3-5 minutes.
Add honey to increase soothing qualities.
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This excerpt is from The Comfrey Kitchen, which is open Now at The Comfrey Conference.
The entire Comfrey Conference Virtual Event will be May 9-15, 2022.
Register now:
www.wisewomanschool.com/p/the-comfrey-conference
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Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca)
* Ease stressed nerves, relieve anxiety
Motherwort calms, supports, and strengthens you the way the smell of your mother did when you were very young. Used regularly, motherwort feeds your nerves and your good common sense, relaxing and unclenching any held tension. Motherwort is not sedating, but calming, leaving you ready for action, not flying off the handle or bouncing off the walls. Ask motherwort to be your ally in tough times, in shaky times, in grief-filled times.
Try 10-20 drops (tincture from fresh flowering plant) as soon you feel your nerves starting to fray or just before a stressful event. Repeat every five minutes if needed.
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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 of this article here:
www.wisewomanmentor.com/recipe-archive/external-uses-of-infusions
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Herbal Syrups
Herbal syrups are sweetened, condensed herbal infusions. Cough drops are concentrated syrups. Alcohol is frequently added to syrups to help prevent fermentation and stabilize the remedy. Cough drops and lozenges, having less water, keep well without the addition of alcohol.
Bitter herbs, especially when effective in a fairly small dose, are often made into syrups: horehound, yellow dock, dandelion, chicory, and motherwort spring to mind in this regard.
Herbs that are especially effective in relieving throat infections and breathing problems are also frequently made into syrups, especially when honey is used as the sweetener: coltsfoot flowers (not leaves), comfrey leaves (not roots), horehound, elder berries (pictured), mullein, osha root, pine, sage, and wild cherry bark are favorites for "cough" syrups.
Read more on Susuns Mentorship website:
www.wisewomanmentor.com/healing-archive/healing-sweets%3A-part-two
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Herbed Burdock
Preparation time: With precooked burdock, 15 minutes at the most.
Add another 45 minutes to soak and cook burdock. Serves 6-8.
4 cups/1 liter burdock root
3 tablespoons/45ml olive oil
3 tablespoons/45ml butter
4 oz/125ml fresh herbs
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbs/30ml lemon juice
2 tablespoons/30ml tamari
Soak and parboil burdock root or stalk. If you use chilled, already cooked burdock, warm it.
Heat oil and butter.
Add burdock, then garlic and herbs.
Stir and heat together for a minute, then add tamari and lemon juice. Serve hot.
If you're ready to go deeper with your herbal studies, join Susun on her *New* Improved Mentorship website. Get new content every week, such as, the expanded herbal ezine, videos, audio of Susuns past lectures, Q&As, many articles, and even personal one on one mentorship from Susun.
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Garlic Honey
(pictured with a sprig of rosemary, thyme, or oregano)
One of my favorite remedies to have on hand for the winter is garlic honey. It is super easy to make and ready almost immediately to counter sore throats, colds, the flu, lung congestion, and sinus problems.
I use a smallish jar (4-8 ounces/125-250ml) with a good lid. First I fill it with unpeeled garlic cloves. If I have some tiny onions from the garden, I add those too. Then I pour honey over it all, using a chop stick to poke the honey down into the garlic. After screwing on the lid, I label the jar with the contents and date. ...
Read the rest of this recipe on Susun's New Mentorship website:
www.wisewomanmentor.com/recipes-3
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Make An Infused Oil/Fresh Herb
Oil and animal fat coax a variety of healing compounds out of fresh plants. Dried plants, with a few exceptions, will never make a great oil.
* Calendula oil calms inflammation and irritation.
* Chickweed oil softens and dissolves cysts and scars.
* Comfrey oil is tricky from fresh; heals tears and breaks.
* Plantain oil stops itching, hastens deep wound recovery.
* St. Joan’s wort oil eases burns, muscle soreness, nerve pain.
Fill a dry jar almost full with finely-chopped fresh herb, then fill with any edible oil/fat.
Cap tightly. Label (on lid). Put in a small bowl to catch ooze.
Steep, out of direct sunlight, for six weeks.
Sieve plant material from oil, squeeze well.
excerpt from: Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines
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Simple Green Pesto
excerpt from Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines.
This simple pesto has only four ingredients. It keeps up to three years in the refrigerator.
Pesto preserves the herbs antioxidant power.
Dandelion leaf pesto is bitter and tangy.
Chickweed pesto is mellow and grassy; use new growth.
Shiso or tulsi pesto is aromatic and romantic.
Garlic mustard pesto is bitter and spicy and delicious.
Garlic scape pesto is heaven on earth.
There are no specific amounts; use what is abundant. ...
* Read the rest of this recipe on the *New* Improved Mentorship site:
www.wisewomanmentor.com/recipe-archive/simple-green-pesto
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Comforting Compress.
Castor oil, Calendula, Comfrey, Plantain, or Witch hazel.
excerpt from Down There: Sexual and Reproductive Health the Wise Woman Way.
Saturate a clean cotton diaper or an old, but well-washed, cotton terry dish towel with the liquid of your choice:
Castor oil, comfrey leaf/root infusion or oil, plantain leaf oil, calendula oil, witch hazel lotion/infusion, or any other healing herbal oil or infusion you wish to use.
For a cold compress: Apply to body as is.
For a hot compress: Fold the saturated towel into quarters, wrap in foil, bake for 15–20 minutes until very warm but not too hot to handle.
Read the rest of this recipe at Susun's *New* Mentorship website:
www.wisewomanmentor.com/recipes-3
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Pain-relief Alternatives
excerpt from: Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines
Generally best not to combine these with drugs.
Serenity Medicine: Meditation alters brain regions that process pain.
Mind Medicine: Acupuncture releases endorphins.
* Alexander Technique is more effective than massage or exercise in relieving low-back pain.
Lifestyle Medicine: Regular exercise counters chronic pain.
Alternative Medicine: Reflexology releases endorphins.
* A cold plunge alters pain perceptions, counters chronic pain.
Herbal Medicine (safest first):
* High CBD (Cannabis) - up to five drops of tincture of the fresh flowering plant, taken as often as every fifteen minutes - is my favorite non-addictive pain reliever. Often, a single dose will do. There will be some THC in the tincture, as all plants contain a mix of cannabinols, but this does not, in my experience and the experience of many students and friends, make you “high.” First choice as an ally for transitioning off opiates/opioids.
* Skullcap (Scutellaria lateriflora) - 5 drops of tincture of the fresh flowering plant, taken as often as needed - is my favorite pain relief, especially when I need to sleep.
* Kava kava (Piper methysticum) - sips of the lightly-fermented infusion or dropperful doses of root tincture - offer fast, effective relief of musculo-skeletal pain, traumatic pain, chronic pain from injuries, heartache. Less likely to put you to sleep, too.
* Willow (Salix alba) - 1-2 dropperfuls of tincture as needed - is as effective as aspirin and contains the same active ingredient.
So does meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria).
* Wild lettuce (Lactuca virosa) - tincture of the fresh sap taken by the spoonful - may be as pain-relieving as poppy juice.
* Valerian - up to a teaspoonful of root tincture - counters chronic pain, puts you out, leaves you hung-over and groggy.
* Poppy (Papavera somniflora) is the source of opium, heroin, opiates, and poppy seeds. Opiates are addictive; poppy seeds aren’t.
A tea of the fresh poppy seed heads entices the brain to make natural opiates (endorphins). Do not combine with drugs or alcohol.
excerpt from: Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines
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Slippery Elm Balls
* Combine slippery elm powder and honey.
* Roll into balls about the size of a hazelnut.
* Roll balls in slippery elm powder to coat.
* Store in a metal tin.
* They stay good for a long, long time, maybe decades.
Slippery elm balls are great for digestion.
Slippery elm is so safe that you can dissolve a ball in your mouth as often as you want, any time you feel any distress.
If you’re working with an ongoing condition, at least two a day is good.
Slippery elm restores the lining of the intestines, prevents any agents within the body from disturbing the intestines, and neutralizes any poisons that are present in or around the intestines.
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