homemade Archives - Page 2 of 4

September 10, 2019January 24, 2020

Elderberry Syrup

If you’ve never had it, you’ve probably heard of it, Elderberry syrup is almost the stuff of legends. And for good reason.

Umbels ob elderberries. — An elderberry umbel.

Elderberries have immune enhancing properties and strong antiviral properties that are helpful in preventing and shortening the life of viral infections like the flu and shingles.

They’re also good for upper respiratory infections and can help alleviate allergy symptoms.

This is one of those easy “insurance policies” (and one that tastes good too) to help keep you well during cold and flu season.

I won’t tell you it will prevent you from getting sick, but I will tell you IF you get sick the symptoms will be less severe and the duration will likely be a much shorter length of time.

Berry hunting

My husband had several places we’ve been watching since elderberries flowered in the late spring and early summer, just waiting for the berries to come on.

Bowls of elderberries. — Picked elderberries

So last weekend we decided it was time. We went to the spots we’d been watching, took a large paper bag, some utility scissors and picked berries.

And we picked a lot of berries. We got a little over 3 pounds.

I’ve made elderberry syrup from concentrate before because I’ve not been able to get the berries from anyone. That worked great too, but I wanted to use real berries.

The places where I buy my herbs from were sold out of the dried berries and I don’t have another place to get fresh ones from.

Elderberries make a really great syrup. I’ve heard of people making a great jelly or jam from them too. I’ve not done that yet, but I do plan on trying it someday.

A cup of elderberries in a sauce pan — A cup of elderberries

I’ve made this syrup several years running now. And, while I have caught a cold about once a year, I’ve not caught the flu.

I don’t do flu shots (shots aren’t an option for me.)

When I did catch a cold, I didn’t take any over the counter cold remedies. I just drank my teas and took my elderberry syrup and it was still gone in less than a week.

I’m a big believer that when my body says stay home and rest, I do it. I truly believe that’s a big part of getting well too.

Back to the elderberry syrup.

Now, I’m excited to see how much syrup I can get out of the 3 pounds of berries we picked.

Honey, masher, strainer and large bowl. — Basic supplies needed.

For your basic recipe you actually only need elderberries, water and honey. That’s it.

You can add other herbs or spices, based on your taste and desires, if you want. But for a basic syrup, these 3 ingredients are all that’s necessary.

For this recipe I added cinnamon and ginger root. You could add cloves if you wanted to.

Elderberry Syrup Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup fresh elderberries or 1/2 cup dried elderberries
3 cups water
about a half inch of ginger root (more or less if you like)
1/2 stick cinnamon (more or less)
About 1 cup of honey or to your preferred taste.

Instructions

Add elderberries, and your herbs and spices (except the honey), to the 3 cups of water in a sauce pan, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer on low for 30-40 minutes.

All ingredients except the hone. — Elderberries, cinnamon and ginger root.

Turn off your heat and mash the mixture with a potato masher.

Stain through a cheese cloth and remove all the plant and spice material. You can add all this material to your compost pile.

At this point, if you wanted a tastier syrup, you could reduce this liquid a little, up to half.

Let the liquid set until just warm. Then add your honey and stir until dissolved.

Elderberry syrup before adding the honey.

You don’t want to add your honey to a hot mixture. You don’t want to add the honey to anything above about 100 degrees (less heat is better) or you’ll destroy that benefit it provides. (I’ll cover that in a separate post.)

Almost 4 cups of elderberry syrup. — Almost 4 cups of completed elderberry syrup.

It will dissolve pretty easy with a luke warm mixture.

Now bottle your syrup and put it in the refrigerator. Take a teaspoon or 2 everyday.

I’m taking about a half a shot glass in the mornings. That’s easy to measure and I’m less apt to spill it.

This recipe made almost 4 cups of syrup. That will be more or less depending on how much honey you add. This was really sweet, so I could have gone with a less honey. Maybe just 1/2 cup next time.

Best part is it’s an herbal recipe that really tastes good and the grandkids like it too. Can’t beat that.

If you’ve ever made elderberry syrup, I’d love to know what spices you used.

Do you know someone who could benefit from having a little of this in their fridge this winter? Share this post with them. They’ll be happy you did.

Until next time –

Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey

August 20, 2019August 19, 2019

Homemade Catsup (or Ketchup)

Grilled burger with homemade catsup and grilled banana peppers. — Homemade catsup on my grilled burger with my homegrown grilled banana peppers.

Either way homemade catsup is really easy and really good.

Recently, I’ve been on this theme of trying almost everything I can find homemade. Hint – coming soon, mustard and crackers among other things.

My goal is to make as much as I can from scratch and buy as little as I can from the store.

Just like garden grown veggies have so much more flavor than their store bought counterpart, in my opinion so does homemade condiments like catsup and homemade sweet pickles.

Regardless of what it is if it’s homegrown or homemade, it’s always so much better than what you get in the stores.

And if it’s homemade it’s a bonus, or maybe it’s the point of it, that you know what every single ingredient is you put into it.

Store bought tomatoes or home grown

In this spirit, every homemade catsup recipe I came across called for tomato paste. I rarely have tomato paste since you usually only use a tablespoon or 2 and I end up throwing it away.

But, this year I have a garden and I’m beginning to get a TON of tomatoes.

A batch of tomatoes getting ready to dehydrate. — Tomatoes that I’m getting ready to slice and dehydrate.

And, this year for my birthday, my awesome husband bought me the Cadillac of dehydrators, an Excalibur Dehydrator. I’ve wanted this thing for years, but it costs so much I wouldn’t buy it for myself.

Anyway, this means I’ve been dehydrating tomatoes. I knew there had to be a way to use those for this recipe.

So I searched the net and finally found a ratio method for mixing dehydrated tomatoes to water for paste and for sauce.

Just so you know…..it’s a 1:1 ratio for paste and a 2:1 water to dehydrated tomatoes for sauce.

So now I’m excited. Dehydrated tomatoes take up WAY less space than canned tomatoes. And this means I don’t have to can so many tomatoes….BONUS!!

Okay, back on track for homemade catsup.

To ferment or not to ferment

A jar of catsup with a fermenting lid. — My jar of homemade catsup with one of my new fermenting lid.

Most of the recipes I found said I could ferment them or not. As a general rule, we don’t use a lot of catsup, so I kinda wanted to ferment just so it would last longer.

Recently, I also bought myself some fermenting lids so I could ferment more. So since I had those I thought I would go ahead and give the fermented catsup a try.

From what I was reading, the recipe is no different either way. So, that made it easy.

Homemade Catsup

Making homemade catsup truly is one of the easiest things you could ever make. And best of all it can be made to suit your tastes. As you mix the ingredients, all you have to do is continue to taste it and adjust it to what you like best.

Although I read through about 3 or 4 different recipes, this is the one I settled on. First because I liked the ingredients and second, because I’ve liked most of the recipes I’ve found on her site so I trusted it would be good.

This recipe comes from theprairiehomestead.com. If you haven’t been there yet, you should check it out. She had a ton of great stuff there.

Ingredients:

12 oz or 1.5 cups of tomato paste
3 TBL of maple syrup or raw honey
3 TBL of raw vinegar
2 TBLS of whey or brine from an existing ferment***
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp allspice**

*** You only need this ingredient if you plan on fermenting your catsup. I had just made some sauerkraut, so I used some of the brine from that.

**I didn’t have allspice, so I found a mixture you can use to make a homemade version. To make 1 tsp of allspice you use 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground clove and a pinch of ground nutmeg.

Instructions:

Mix all of your ingredients in a bowl. If you are not going to ferment it, then put it in the refrigerator and your done. I’d let it sit for a few days just so all the flavors blend well.

A bowl full of ingredients to make catsup. — Mix all of your ingredients into your bowl and mix well.

If you’re going to ferment, then put your catsup in a pint jar, cover it with a fermenting lid, an airlock or a regular lid. If you use a regular lid, you need to remember to burp it either daily or a few times a day to let the fermenting gases escape.

Let it sit on your counter for about 3 days and then put a regular lid on it and move it to your refrigerator.

That’s it. It just doesn’t get any easier.

Another thing you’ll notice with this recipe is there is no sugar. I suppose you could use sugar if you wanted to in place of the honey or maple syrup. I wouldn’t know why, but you could if you wanted to.

You can adjust these spices to whatever taste you like. You could even add a touch of hot sauce if that’s something you might like. The possibilities of the different tastes you could come up with are endless.

So there you have it, really easy homemade catsup. I hope you give it a try. I know I’ll not be buying it from the store anymore. You may decide the same thing.

If you find you want to make your own catsup, let me know in the comments below how it turns out. If you change up the recipe, I’d love to hear how. I’d love it if you would post pictures of what you make.

Be sure to subscribe to get something new in your inbox every week. Canning season is coming up, I have a new dehydrator and I have several new recipes I’m itching to make, you won’t want to miss what’s coming.

Until next time-

Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey

July 23, 2019July 22, 2019

The Many Ways of Making Herbal Tea

So a week or so ago I told you about mixing your own herbal tea blends. You can find that here. Now, here’s something a little different.

When I first started making herbal tea, it felt very foreign to me. That seemed like an exotic kind of thing for this small town country girl. I never considered there was anything beyond the store bought tea bags.

These days I’ve discovered so many ways to prepare and steep your herbal tea, I have to actually decide on which one I’ll use each time.

The Different Methods I Use to Prepare My Herbal Tea

There are several different ways to hold your loose leaf herbal tea. Let’s go over a few.

Tea Bags

There’s a couple of different tea bags you can use. I use both of these and like them both for different reasons.

This one I get from Mountain Rose Herbs. I like this one because you can quickly make a bag of tea, just fold over the edge and pour your water over it.

I use this one at home a lot. It’s good for trying a new herbal tea blend and don’t want to make up a lot.

This is another one I like to use. I get them at Mountain Rose Herbs too. You can find them in different sizes all over Amazon, but I’m never really sure of the quality from places I don’t know.

herbal tea in tea bags — Iron close tea bags.

I like this one because they’re easy to prepare and have several bags pre-made and ready to take with you when you want. They’re just like regular tea bags, and easily portable because they seal.

Both of these tea bag types are compostable too, which is a plus for me since we compost everything possible.

Tea Balls

Tea balls are another way to steep your herbal teas. They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. I have a few different styles and I use them both. I don’t have a specific purpose for either, just depends on my mood at the time.

Some tea balls have smaller screen sizes or holes which means some will leave small bits of leaf in the bottom of your cup and others won’t.

Handle spoon type tea ball. — This style is more like a spoon

I don’t mind little bits of tea leaf in the bottom of my cup, but that may be something you’ll want to consider when you decide on one.

Then there are a few other styles that I like.

A Couple Other Styles

A friend bought me this next style a long time ago. I love it. This one is a basket type thing you put your herbs in and set it in your cup and then pour your water directly over your herbs.

herbal tea straining basket — Herbal tea straining basket and holder.

This one works very well. It even comes with a little thing to set the tea basket in when you get ready to drink your tea.

Making herbal tea with a tea basket — A basket full of lavender and lemon balm tea.

This one is really good for using enough herbs to make several cups of tea.

And lastly, I have a steeping pot. I found it on sale at my local grocery store several years back and have been very happy with it.

Glass steeping pot — I found this at a local grocery store during a clearance sale. I love it.

It’s a thin clear glass pot, so after I pour my water over the herbs, I usually wrap it in a tea towel to keep it hot. I use this a lot more in the winter, cause I can drink a whole pot on a Sunday afternoon.

Brewing Your Tea

Teas or herbs with a high volitile oil content, or those that smell really good, need to be covered when you steep them. This will keep the properties of the herb from evaporating while the tea steeps.

A covered steeping tea blend. — Steeping herbal tea.

So if you’re making a tea using, say lavender, you’ll want to cover it while it steeps.

I’m sure there are several more ways to prepare your herbal tea. But these are the ones I use regularly.

I hope you see one you would like to try. Or maybe you saw a few that interest you. Even better.

Thanks for stopping by and reading about making herbal tea. Let me know what method you use or let me know which method you want to try. I’m curious.

Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already. See you next week.

Until then –

Health, Wealth & Blessing ~ Tracey

July 16, 2019July 29, 2019

Berry Jam

I love berry jam. Don’t you? It goes good on everything, in my humble opinion.

This is where I found my berries.

Early this year I bought a few blueberry bushes because I eat a ton of blueberries. They’re my favorite.

My blueberry bush with berries. — One of my 3 blueberry bushes.

I’d always heard or read, can’t remember which for sure, that, like strawberries, it would take a year or so to start getting any berries.

Apparently, that’s not true. I was happy to see that these bushes were going to produce lots of berries. They didn’t produce a lot at one time, but as they matured, I harvested them and put them in the freezer.

Then one day I was out walking around the yard and found a mulberry tree. My husband had been hacking at it with a machete for quite a few years trying to kill it. Of course, we all know you can’t kill a mulberry tree, at least where I live. They grow like weeds.

Ripe mulberries in a bowl. — Mmmmmm mulberries.

There’s been a large mulberry tree on the property for years and I never got a berry from it. The birds ate them all before I could get to them. There’s always been purple bird poop on everything, every year.

But, this year, this tree, which is now a bush, continued to survive. And not only did it survive, it was covered in mulberries. Beautiful, ripe, purple berries, that tasted awesome. I couldn’t believe the birds hadn’t noticed this bush!!

So I started picking berries daily. I only got about 1/2 cup of a mix of the two at a time. I collected them, washed them and let them set out to dry overnight and then put them in jars in the freezer the next morning.

Me and My granddaughter discovered frozen berries make a great summer snack. Note to self for next year.

I decided when I got to 5-6 cups of berries I’d make some berry jam. It did’t take too long to collect about 5 cups. That seemed to be the magic number, because at about 5 cups both bushes finished their production.

I’m not complaining, I’m totally happy with what I got from them. Beside the 5 cups worth, I also got to eat some too.

Now it’s time to make some berry jam.

I found a non-pectin berry jam recipe on the Farmer’s Almanac web site. This is what I loosely followed. I’ve looked but I can’t seem to find the same recipe again to post a link.

I say loosely because that recipe used a different kind of berry and didn’t add lemon juice. I wasn’t sure about the acidity level of berries, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

Better Homes and Gardens Canning Book. — The canning book I used as a reference for this recipe.

This is one of the books I use for my canning.

I have several, but this happened to be the one I used.

It has a chart that lists the acidity levels for several different types of foods.

If the acidity level is high you can water bath can your jam for preservation instead of pressure canning.

But if the acidity levels are lower you need to use a pressure canner to be sure you kill any kind of nasty bug that may make you sick.

Acidity levels for different types of food. — Acidity levels from the book.

As you can see, lemons and limes are at the low end of the pH levels which you would expect, and the berries are kind of in the middle.

There probably wouldn’t have been a problem, but since I had lemon juice, I decided I’d go ahead and use it.

Since I had the time I still decided to not use the pectin.

All I had to do was cook it a little longer. Actually, I probably cooked it a bit too long, cause it’s really, REALLY thick. But I’m okay with that.

It’s the first time I’ve made jam without the pectin. I wanted to make sure it got thick enough. I’ll call it an experiment instead of a mistake.

So I started with the 5 cups of berries I had been picking and freezing over the past month or so. It was a mix of mulberries and blueberries.

Frozen berries beginning to cook down. — Cooking down my berries.

I poured them into a stock pot and heated them on low until the blueberries began to break and the mulberries got mushy.

Then I added the 3-3/4 cups of sugar. The recipe I found said 3/4 cup of sugar for every cup of berries. That seemed easy enough to remember and it’s less sugar than some of the recipes I’ve got for jam. I cooked this slow and stirred a lot so the sugar didn’t burn at the bottom. It won’t take long to melt.

Mashing cooked berries. — Mashing the berries as they cooked.

Cooking berry jam. — Cooking the berries.

Then I mashed them with a potato masher. You can mash these down as much as you want. I like the larger chunks so I didn’t worry too much about it. I knew the blueberries would cook down to pretty much juice, but the mulberries, which are sweeter, didn’t break down so much.

The recipe I read said without using the pectin you needed to cook it about 1/2 hour to 45 mins. I decided to go about mid way and cook them about 40 min on low. Next time I’ll probably just cook them about 25 min, maybe 30.

Make sure you stir a lot. I couldn’t get my burner down low enough, in my opinion, so stirred it almost constantly.

Now it’s time to can the berry jam.

Sterilizing canning jars. — this is an easy way to sterilize your jars. Put them over the water in your canner while you wait for it to come to a boil. I just put the lid on it and let it go.

I began by boiling water in the water bath canner. Then I put the jars in the canner while the water boiled to sterilize them.

Once the water boiled and the jars were sterilized, I filled each one.

Filling jars with berry jam. — Filling the canning jars.

While I fillied the jars, I boiled the canning lids. I’ve heard recently that that is a step that you don’t have to do anymore.

I’m not sure if there are new lids that don’t require boiling or if Ball just changed the rules. But since my lids are older, I’ll continue to boil them until it get new ones that read that it’s not necessary.

Cleaning the jar rim. — Make sure the rims of your jars are clean.

Once your finished filling the jars, you want to make sure the rims are clean. This will ensure there is nothing to obstruct the sealing process.

Then add the lids and rings. You don’t want to crank down the rings. Just finger tight. When you add them to the canner you want about an inch or 2 of water to cover your jars.

Jar of jam ready to be canned. — My canner has a rack in it. I set the jars on the rack and then I can just lower the rack into the boiling water.

I waited until the water was at a rolling boil, then I lowered the jars into the canner. You can add them sooner, but you don’t want to start your timer until your water is at a rolling boil.

Then I processed them in the boiling water for 15 min.

Now they’re done.

Now you can turn off the heat, and raise your rack.

The best part about this is hearing the lids seal. They’ll begin to ping one at a time. In my opinion, this is the best part. Makes me smile every time.

Now you just wait for them to cool and you have preserved berry jam.

I put one of them in the fridge without processing it, so I could have some berry jam to eat now. I wanted to try it out. Then I labeled the rest and put them in the pantry.

If you have the equipment canning your own jam is really easy. Do your research and be sure to follow the best safety rules when canning. They are listed in all the canning books. Don’t be afraid to it a try. It’s really not as scary as it sounds.

If you have canned your own jam, let me know what kind. I’d love to hear what you’ve been preserving. Add your pictures to the comments.

Be sure to subscribe and comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time –

Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey

June 11, 2019June 11, 2019

Homemade Bug Spray

Homemade bug spray is easy to make. Your homemade bug spray can be as organic as you want it to be, there are no chemicals and best of all it works.

Homemade bug spray is not going to be near as long lasting as the store bought stuff. I don’t know what they use to make it stick to you so long, but this homemade bug spray doesn’t have it.

My batch of bug spray. Sorry for that crooked picture.

What we buy in the stores has so many ingredients in it we can’t pronounce that I’m just not willing to use on me and mine, if I can at all help it. And like so many things we buy these days we just don’t know where that stuff came from or how it was made.

I use this homemade spray on my grandkids, my furbabies, and myself so I want it to be as natural and safe as it can be.

Like most homemade stuff, it doesn’t have the staying power the industrial stuff you buy from a store does. You have to remember to reapply it every few hours especially if you are sweating badly or getting wet. But that’s okay because it smells good and it’s all natural so it can’t hurt you.

What Attracts Mosquitoes

There are several things that attract mosquitoes to the human body. Here’s a short list of the primary ones.

Carbon dioxide. This is the gas that we expel when we breath. This is what lets them know there is a food supply nearby.
Body Odor. If you sweat, make sure you wash off regularly to help prevent the growth of bacteria. The bacteria that grows from sweating is what creates the odor that attracts mosquitoes to you.
Secretors. Sounds terrible doesn’t it? Apparently about 80% of the human population are what’s considered to be “secretors”. These people secrete saccarides (a sugar based chemical) and antigens. These antigens indicate your blood type and mosquitoes like type “O” blood most and type “A” blood least. Who knew?
Lactic acid. We emit lactic acid through our skin through activity and by eating certain foods. So the more activity, the more lactic acid you will emit. Foods like soured milks, kefir, yogurt and some cottage cheeses contain the lactic acid your body emits.

The above items are all related to scent which is the primary attraction for mosquitoes. Some other things that attract them are heat, moisture, movement and color.

I found out that pregnant women are shown to exhale 21% more carbon dioxide and tend to be warmer in the belly area. So any pregnant ladies may want to wear light weight long sleeves and pants to avoid as much exposure as possible.

I also found out they like dark colors. I’m kind of fond of wearing dark colors too, so that’s a problem for me. I might have to change up what I wear when I’m home in the evening.

Most things you buy for any kind of bug control either contains or at least smells like citronella. And there’s a good reason for that.

Citronella

From what I read in researching for this post citronella works because it helps mask the carbon dioxide from our breathing and the lactic acid that we emit through our skin.

Lavender

I use lavender because I like the smell and for all the other reasons I mentioned in my previous post here. But I also found out that mosquitoes just flat don’t like the smell. I actually read they they will avoid it “at all costs”.

From what I’ve read, mosquitoes don’t like several of the heavily scented plants and herbs like geraniums, basil, several types of mints, and rosemary, just to name a few. You know, all those herbs that you can run your hands through and then smell the oils on them.

I like the smell of citronella and lavender, so that’s the mixture I’ve gone with. You can use the mix that you like best using the essential oils mentioned above. You can research other herbs too to find those that you might like that I haven’t named.

Homemade Bug Spray Recipe

This recipe is so easy. It consist of water and essential oils. The only caveat is that you use real essential oils, not the synthetic equivalents. They won’t have the same potency that the real essential oils have.

You can choose the potency you like best, but this is how I mix it.

About 1-1/2 to 2 Cups of water in a spray bottle.

I added about 100 drops of essential oils. 50 of Citronella and 50 of lavender.

Remember you’ll have to shake your spray bottle every time you use it. Oil and water don’t mix, so you need to help that along every time you use it.

There are several places you can get your essential oils. Most of the organic stores in your area will sell essential oils. I get my oils from doTERRA. I actually became a doTERRA consultant for the discounts because I found I used essential oils for so many things. You can see what all they have here, if you like.

Several different essential oils you can use.

There are several places to get your spray bottles. Depending on what was in it, you could reuse an old spray bottle. You’d want to make sure it never any anything kind of toxic or harmful liquids in it previously. Make sure you clean it thoroughly before using, including the sprayer nozzle.

I hope you enjoy this recipe. Experiment with different scents to find the one you like best. You could actually make specific scents for specific people. Play with it and have fun. Let me know what you come up with by leaving a comment below. I really would like to know.

Until next time –

Health, Wealth & Blessing ~ Tracey