MyHerbCorner

Archive for the ‘Kitchen secrets’ Category

There is an endless use of herb powders like spices in the kitchen or the well known wound powder as well as baby powder.

I already mentioned yarrow (Achillea millefolium) powder in my previous post and like to add here some other wound powders.

A wound powder which is preventing infections to open wounds is skin healer calendula (Calendula officinalis) flower and leaf. Grind dried herb like shown in the previous post and fill into an empty dry jar.
If you combine yarrow powder and calendula powder you got a powerful wound medicine.
Make different powders by combining different amounts of each herb.
Say for a blood stopping anti-infection powder take 2 parts yarrow and one part calendula.
For wounds with less bleeding use 2 parts calendula and 1 part yarrow.

Another magical powder is clove (Syzygium aromaticum)
You might know this nasty cuts you can get from paper. Just stick your finger into clove powder and the pain will be gone. Clove powder acts anesthetic and antibacterial.

A helpful powder against infected skin conditions such as boils or weeping, infected eczema is the purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
Grind dried root and fill into a jar. This powder can also be used as umbilical powder for babies.

For internal use herbs are also grounded and filled into capsules or just blended with honey, yogurt or mixed into finished meals.
Some people also use the soft part of fresh baked bread and knead it with herb powder, then form small balls or tablets which can be dried (guess this is easy and convinient instead of gelatine capsules)

Taking freshly ground powder is a good source of plant medicine if people are not able to take a high amount of herb medicine in infusion or tea form, as well as refusing to take alcohol tincture or vinegar.

Since the capsule or powder mixed with honey or other things goes through the digestive tract, this can be very helpful in problems of the digestive tract.

A carminative powder (this relieves flatulence, digestive colic and gastric discomforts) can be made by grinding carminative herbs like caraway (Carum carvi), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) or others and using after or before meal (1 tsp in yogurt or other source like mentioned above)

A lovely carminative mixture contains 2 parts peppermint (Mentha piperita) leaves, 1 part aniseed (Pimpinella anisum), 1 part fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
Grind peppermint by it self and blend then with the powdered seeds which can be pestled together.

Mucilage herbs like marshmallow (Althea officinalis) can be used for stomach linen problems since it is soothing to inflammation.
Marshmallow root powder can also be mixed with honey and taken to sooth a sore throat or cough.

From the book ‘Herbal medicine’ by Dian Dincin Buchman I learned to make an ‘Antinausea powder’ which can also be used by weak digestion.

Antinausea powder:
3 small thin sticks or one big stick cinnamon bark
8 cardamon seeds
1 medium nutmeg
Grind all together and give into a jar. Use 1/4 tsp for an adult or a tiny pinch for a child when feeling sick.

Powdered herbs make also a fine tooth powder and you can find a few recipes here.

And in the kitchen you can use powdered herbs not only as spice, but also for herbal salts.
Click here for some recipes.

Hope you find a good mortar and have fun by pestle your own medicine

The last few days the sky had a magnificent deep blue and we made a daily walk around our area.
Not far an amazing lovely birch is stretching her twigs up to the the sky.
It is nearly time to get some pipes for birch water harvest… hope to be able for some pictures when the time is right…

David my little herbalist is always collecting something. At the moment he loves dandelions which go to the rabbits, our meal, ‘Fairy spread’ (click here for the recipe) or a nice hot tea.

Here is our little bundle for tea with yarrow herb and plantain leaves.

Sometimes I am over whelmed by the sight of such an abundance of chickweed. Here would be enough for a daily succus for a blood cleansing cure or spring cure.

Some of the willows have already catkins while others still sleep. I collected some twigs and munched the buds while walking. They tasted great
I use willow twigs for many things (click here to find out medicinal uses and here for art projects)

On the next picture you see that we live in New Zealand because we can have all seasons in one day. Here it looks like autumn but we are near to spring and have even freezing nights which is in my area our kind of winter. Only the tops of the highest mountains have snow, and our pass was white only once this winter.

My dear Austrian friend Heidi brought me on the track to research honesty (Lunaria)

She told me this interesting plant is called ‘Tuerkischer Spinat‘ in her area which means ‘Turkish spinach’ in English.
It got this name because Turkish women living in Austria are collecting the young leaves to make spinach.
How cool is that!
My curiosity was born and I searched for the edibility of honesty.

Before I tell you about my findings I’d like to introduce this plant.
The white honesty (Lunaria rediviva) which is growing in moist, shadowy deciduous woods is perennial and grows 30-150 cm high.

While in Austria and possible other European countries the white one is blooming in big patches…

… we in New Zealand are more used to see the biennial honesty (Lunaria annua)
This one is producing purple flowers in it’s second year.

The flowering time is from October through November in NZ and from May to July on the Northern Hemisphere.
The flowers are hermaphrodite, which means that they have both male and female organs.
Honesty is self-fertile and is noted to attract wildlife. They are pollinated by bees, flies, moths and butterflies.

Honesty’s four petaled cross shaped flowers (a hint of the belonging to the Brassica family) smell lightly fragrant and are followed by flat circular green seedpods which are called silicles in the book Wildflowers of New Zealand (see Ref.), while they are named as silicules in the book New Zealand Wild Flower Handbook (see Ref.)
Here is a picture of my Lunaria annua developing it’s last seeds.

When ripe the green outer covering peels off and reveals a silvery papery septum.

They look so gorgeous and can be used for indoor decoration.
Honesty got it’s name Lunaria from the moon like appearance of the ripe seedpods which are shining silvery in the night if you use a flash light.
I just love to go outside in the night and discover the plants by all their secret beauty.

Honesty is also called money plant because of their resemblance to silver dollars (I like the moon name better…)
In German it is called ‘Silberblatt’ which means ‘silver leaf.’

The silvery seedpods contain winged seeds which are edible.
I did chew on one and must say it wasn’t that impressive…

But I read later that the seeds have to be cooked to get their pungent flavour and can be used as a mustard substitute.
No wonder honesty belongs to the Brassica family (mustard family)
The grounded seeds can also be mixed with cold water to produce a chemical reaction in which an enzyme (myrosin) acts on a glycoside (sinigrin) to produce a sulphur compound which is giving you a nice mustard flavour.
The reaction is said to take 10 – 15 minutes (ok, I didn’t chew that long *g)
If you like a mild bitter mustard, mix honesty seeds with hot water or vinegar, or with salt to inhibit the enzyme.
Unfortunately I can’t find enough seeds to try this out… can you?

The root of honesty is also edible and can be eaten raw.
I tasted this one raw and found it slightly aromatic, kind of radish.

Collect the roots before the flowers appear. The inside looks like a flower with it’s hollow chambers.

Since honesty self sows freely and Lunaria annua is biennial, I will collect more of them as soon as it is the right season. The roots and flowers of the above pictures are from one plant I found in the garden and I think the radish taste of the root will be stronger when collected at the proper time (before blooming AND seeding :- )

Here is a pic of a young plant which leaves can be added to salad.

They taste kind of green with a hint of mustard aroma.
When the leaves are older they get a bit sturdy and hairy so they are better cooked like spinach.
The leaves of honesty are heart shaped and dark green with coarsely toothed edges.
Their branching stems are hairy.

You can find Lunaria on waste areas or around gardens. It avoids acid soil and prefers neutral and basic (alkaline) soils.
Honesty loves shade to part shade and is not frost tender because I can find new plants growing now in our very late autumn with all it’s chills. It is fast-growing and usually self-sow freely.
I sometimes counted 8-10 seeds in one pod but mostly there have been 6.

Thanks Heidi for the first three pictures and giving me the tip of honesty’s edibility.
I already like the roots and it comes handy since you don’t need to cook them and as you know… I am always hungry

References:
Wildflowers of New Zealand, by Geoff & Liz Brunsden ISBN 1-86966-047-1
New Zealand Wild Flower Handbook, by Owen & Audrey Bishop, ISBN 1-86958-924-6
Wild Blumen, by Bertram Muenker, Mosaik Verlag GmbH, Muenchen
www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Lunaria+annua

Still musing around about chamomile I made ice-blocks today…

First I made a tea with one spoon chamomile and two spoons fresh chopped lemon balm to 1 liter water.
After 20 minutes I strained the tea and poured it into ice-block container.
(Actually I was first thinking of leaving the herbs inside because it must look nice when you pull out the ice-block and it has a ring of herbs where you hold it…)
Anyway, when they were frozen my kids were fighting who gets the first one of this new experiment and as you see…

… the result passed the ‘Y E C’ (Yummy Effect Control )

By the way, the tea is also great as ice-tea or ice-cubes. If you like it sweet just make the infusion with a stevia leaf (or two…)

You can also make the tea by combining chamomile with lemon grass or orange mint or….
I chose lemon balm because it is calming like chamomile and so it is a nice trick to use when your kids are running through the house like crazy… they lick the ice-block and forget the rest… playing nicely afterward… hopefully )

In a few days my ‘sweet herb’ will bloom

Autumn is the best time to harvest the leaves of this special herb, because it is the time where it is the sweetest.

You can dry it or use fresh. If you bring it indoors over the winter it doesn’t die back (by the way if you live in an area with lots of frost or snow, you have to bring her indoors anyway!)
I use stevia leaves in sweet dishes eg let it cook with the milk when making custard and remove the leaves just before I add the cornmeal.
Since the apples are ripe, I also use it right now in my apple compote with warming cinnamon sticks and anti-septic cloves

From my experience stevia isn’t that easy to grow from seeds as promised… so my plant comes from a nursery and I did propagate another plant by making cuttings in spring.