Homemade concoctions to aid in making homemade concoctions.

A few holidays ago (I have no idea which one) Charlie started building me a drying rack as a gift. Six, maybe 8, months of starting and stopping later it's finally finished and in full use! It's basically a pine frame with slots to slide trays in. The trays are also pine and I hot glued taut screen on top of each tray.  The whole thing, though large, is lightweight and easy to move, but also slips nicely into place underneath the kitchen counter. So far I'm drying snow/snap peas and fava beans for fall planting, various herbs, and thin slices of a large beet.

The beet is an experiment. My favorite lip balm has a hint of beet powder in it to tint the balm. I'm interested in trying to make my own with fewer ingredients and perhaps a bit brighter color. Wish me luck, it may take me another 6 to 8 months to get around to making it!

A taste of Spring

A few weeks ago the wild violets were poking their pretty little faces up in the yard and I took the opportunity to try my hand at candied violets. Mabel and I brushed the delicate blooms with egg white, coated them with sugar, and set them aside to dry thoroughly.

They were so pretty I asked my baking expert friend Jude to make a special treat worthy of showing off the candied flowers. The cakes definitely upstaged the delicious violets, but not because the violets weren't amazing themselves. Other sweets were topped with sugars colored with wildflower petals. 

Candying violets will be added to our rites of spring. Interested in adding it to yours? We'll have wild violets available at our fundraising plant sale on Saturday, April 18, 2015. Come out to support Little Sugar Creek Community Garden (Charlotte), leave with a gorgeous array of interesting plants ready to inspire tasty treats!

Wildflowers in the kitchen

When I heard the slightest whisper from spring the inspiration to play came on full force. The violets peeked their pretty little faces toward the sunshine and I gathered a cupful for kitchen experiments.

 

Violet petals in sugar with a hint of lemon zest made the prettiest lavender sugar!

Egg white wash over whole violets, sprinkled with sugar makes for candied violets. I'm dreaming of cupcakes fit for a fairy party!

 

And because  the violet sugar was so fun, I tried the same with dandelions. I don't know if the color will keep, but I'm already thinking of what other flowers I can try!

 

 

Black Walnut Ink

What does a stay-at-home-mom do between baby wrangling and printing posters for a couple of upcoming shows? Simmer walnuts on the stove to make ink, of course!

Mabel has been helping pile up the walnuts in our yard, which then go into one of my big enamel pots (formerly used for canning), are covered with water, and then the liquid is reduced in half. I also gathered some goldenrod to add to one of the batches to see if I could get a bit of a yellow hue to the ink. I didn't gather enough goldenrod and the plants are at the end end of their season here anyway.

The result is a beautiful warm brown. I've bottled some up to take to the Handmade Market, saved a quart for Charlie to use as a wood stain, and have another batch I'm reducing even further to make it really saturated.

Want to make your own? Follow the instructions over on You Grow Girl! Gayla takes all the guess work out of the process!

Respect your Elders

There is one blueberry bush in our yard (of about 10) that has berries on it. I suspect that's because it's tucked beside an elderberry and the birds have been so distracted with the elderberry they haven't noticed the blueberry. Whatever the reason, it will have a nice-sized harvest when/if they ever ripen.

Yesterday I went to check on it and saw the elderberries are ripe! I'd had it in my mind that they'd be ready sometime in August. I guess that needs a mental correction? Anyway, it seems early to me. I harvested about 3/4 of the clusters from the 2 largest bushes. There were enough clusters that were nearly bare to tell me there have been ripe berries for a few days at least. The remaining unpicked clusters are mostly green and will be harvested in a couple weeks, I suppose.

Earlier in the spring I saved a few flower heads for use as herbal tea. Now I have about 2 cups of fresh berries. I'll probably dry half and syrup (You can verb 'syrup' right? You can verb 'verb' right?) the other half. Elderberries have historically been used for prevention of winter ailments, they're packed with vitamins (A, B, and C) and immune boosting antioxidants.

Later today we're going blackberry picking! Any berries in your neck of the woods? What's lookin' good?

For those interested in growing elderberries, one of my bushes was started from a twig I simply stuck in the ground. I believe it is Black Elderberry (Sambucus nigra). The other is one I purchased from Gardens of the Blue Ridge and is the North American native elderberry, Sambucus canadensis. If you're interested in purchasing one, I can't recommend them highly enough.