Parsnip cake with orange frosting

What is more quintessentially winter than parsnips? Don't like parsnips, perhaps? But, do you like cake?

This is an interesting twist on carrot cake.


Ingredients

• 5 eggs
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup maple syrup

• 2 1/2 cups baking flour of your choice (gluten free, or whatever)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbsp baking soda
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup raisins
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts 
• 2 1/2 cups freshly grated parsnips (they brown quickly, so do it right before you put them in the recipe

Mead again

I took my mead to an SCA arts and sciences event to get some feedback, and it didn't totally suck. The night before the event I took half the mead and 'backsweetened' it with 500g of really nice honey that I got out of my hives a month ago, right on the cusp of wrapping them up for the winter.

The original mead was very watery, and not terribly flavourful, but someone suggested that I could use it to make extracts. That's a fantastic idea, and I'll be doing that. The sweetened mead was a little bit watery, and it didn't meet the standards of the master brewer who tried it, but everyone else thought it was perfectly fine. Also, it had a kick like a mule. I don't know what the alcohol content is, but it's definitely over 10%.

I'll be giving a jar of mead and a jar of honey as 'rent' at the place where I keep my hives. I hope they like it.

My next brewing adventure will be more controlled. I bought a couple cider kits, and I'll be starting them soon. I want to have some good beverages to share for the SCA summer camping season, in good Anglo-Saxon mead-hall fashion.

Easy homemade gifts

1. Homemade peppermint extract

Take clean, fresh mint leaves, fill a mason jar, crush with the handle of a wooden spoon to release the oils, fill to the top with a clear liquor of your choice, and put on the lid. Let it sit for a month or two (two is better). Strain into gift jars. Give to your favourite baker.

How to become a little bit more self-sufficient (even if you live in the city)

Being more self-sufficient also means saving a bit of money. This is what's called a 'win-win', I believe! If this is super new for you choose one item off this list, and start from there.

1. Have some herbs in pots in a sunny window.

My kitchen is too dark to keep plants in, so all of my herbs, and my lemon and bay trees have ended up in my daughter's 'study'. She likes being surrounded by plants while she works, and her window faces nearly directly south, so everybody is happy. Between this and my outdoor herb garden I haven't had to buy anything except annual herbs for years, and I have enough to give away as gifts, as well as make my food extra yummy for the whole year. I honestly believe this is why my roast chicken and soups are as good as it is. Fresh, or freshly dried, herbs really do make all the difference.

Planning a dye garden for myself

If I'm lucky this is what we'll get done this coming summer. I forgot to label the water barrel (bottom right) and the composter (the yellow and brown box at the top), and the small shed (empty white box at the top).

Medieval plant dyes (and modern)

As long as you have red, yellow and blue you can mix and match to make almost any colour. Some of these dye plants are more resistant to fading in sunlight or getting washed out of the fibre than others.

Any plant name that is in bold is a perennial (or biennial).

Red - 

Medieval European- Madder (Rubia tinctoria), Lady's Bedstraw/Cleavers (Galium verum)

Other- Amaranth (Hopi red dye), Dyer's Alkanet, Henna (Lawsonia inermis) (shrub), Joe Pye Weed, Dyer's Woodruff (Asperula tinctoria), Brazilwood (tree)

Orange - 

Medieval European- any yellow + Madder, or just Madder itself

Other- Dyer's Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), Orange Cosmos, Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldstrum') (edges into dull yellow)

Dye, you fool!

Madder and dyer's chamomile. Dyer's chamomile smells just like chamomile tea, so my daughter didn't hate this as much as weld. Thank goodness she wasn't around for the woad.

I always used to get orange out of madder, but I've got the hang of it now. This is the madder with dyer's chamomile. The picture doesn't do the colour any justice. It's a quite nice tangerine.

Fall herb harvest

 Chives and parsley. They're hard to air dry so I'm going to put them into the freezer. I have a dehydrator somewhere... I suspect it got put in the crawl space when we moved in, and I hate going in there. Freezer it is!

Roman award scroll for Gaius

The scroll on the right is something I did for a Roman soldier persona in the SCA. The script is the kind used by Emperors on down to school kids in the late Roman empire, and nobody bothered to write neatly on paper (or papyrus, which was what was available then). The two bracelets are supposed to be armillae, a military honour which is vaguely cognate to an Award of Arms in the SCA. Apparently Gaius was extremely happy. He tracked me down online to offer me a bottle of mead, which I would never turn down! But it really isn't necessary. Knowing that he was so extremely happy is everything I needed. (And sincere thanks to Nicolaa de Bracton for fixing up my Latin boo-boos).
Green tea-dyed Arches hot press watercolour paper dry-brushed with thinned Sienna gouache to look like papyrus.

First Attempt at Mead

It takes me a long time to work myself up to trying something new. I'm always worried that I'll mess it up and end up having wasted my time and money. However, in this case, everything is either cheap or reusable.

I keep bees, and earlier this summer I was trying to do something with one of my hives (I can't remember what now), and I ended up with a frame of unfinished honey. This honey smells a little off, but it's perfectly safe to eat. I suspect there were some odd flowers or something that went into this batch. It just doesn't taste very good in my tea.

So, I saved it in the fridge until I was ready to try making mead. I have enough of that honey to probably make just about five gallons of this stuff.

Crispy veggie and herb snacks

I have a bunch of friends who are trying to go keto and/or reduce their carbs. In grain-free land that's pretty much how we roll (not always by choice sometimes). I've collected a few recipes to help deal with that craving for potato chips that will inevitably develop. For most of these some sort of mechanical slicer would be a good idea, such as a mandoline. Some of the recipes also use a dehydrator. You can use an oven as a dehydrator, but it doesn't really work as well, and it uses a lot of energy, so I've included some baked alternatives.

More mead thoughts

As is usually the case I'm not the first person to have thought about the medieval way of making mead. I came across a great post in a forum recently that really clears up all my questions. This is the kind of mead that I'm going to be making at the end of the week-

Some thoughts on mead and pre-industrial bee keeping

So, in a lot of mead recipes there's the direction to boil the honey with water and skim off the scum, which sterilizes it a bit and removes impurities. With modern beekeeping methods there's very little in the way of impurities, so this always seemed like a slightly redundant step to me. Until two days ago when I had to clean up a mess I let build up in a hive, and I ended up with almost 2kg of honey, and the associated wax... and a bunch of dead bees in it. Pro tip- bees are busy little creatures, and if you leave a bit of extra space on top for any reason they will build right up into it lickety-split.

How to attract Bumblebees to your garden

According to Hinterland Who's Who Bumblebees are native to North America (unlike honey bees which did not exist here until Colonists brought them over). They are large and fuzzy, and non-aggressive, unless you disturb their nest or swat at them (or step on them). Their stinger isn't barbed, unlike the honey bee, so they can sting multiple times if they need to. The drones (males) do not have a stinger at all. Bumblebees see in UV light so they are more attracted to blue and purple flowers, but they will happily feed off of any flowers they find.

Only 45 species of bumblebees are social, meaning that they live in hives of up to 200 individuals, whereas honeybees have colonies of up to 40,000. Bumblebees make very little honey as all but the new queens die off over the winter. They usually nest underground in abandoned rodent burrows, and they can be found in sub-Arctic to sub-Tropical climates.

Parmesan garlic basil crisps

It's as easy as this- Preheat the oven to 350F, line a baking pan with baking paper, drop tablespoons full of real, grated parmesan (not the kind from the shaker) onto the paper and flatten out a bit. Sprinkle with dried basil and garlic powder. Bake for 5 minutes. Let it cool. Eat.

You can make as many or as few as you want. Keeps for a week in the fridge in an airtight container.

Sorry I've been offline for a while

In mid-February I fell on the ice and hit my head. I haven't been able to be online to work on anything, including checking my email.

I hope to be back soon.

Dandelion Wine

I swear that I'm going to try it this year. I like this method as it looks plausibly medieval.

Ingredients

• 10 cups dandelion blossoms (leaves only, no green part or it will be too bitter)
• 3.7 litres (or 1 gallon, or 16 cups) water
• 2 oranges with peel (if I'm eating the peel I really prefer organic)
• 1 lemon with peel
• 6 cups sugar
• 1 pkg wine yeast
• 0.45 kg (or 1 lb) raisins

Why do my houseplants die? (A tale of unnecessary woe)

Or, humans can't live on bread and water alone, and neither can plants...


I have some friends who swear up and down that they have a brown thumb. Every plant they take in dies a long, slow, horrible death. Sometimes it's because they forget to water enough (and even more rarely, too much). Usually when I ask them what happens, they say they don't know.


tl;dr- Buy a good liquid plant food and add it to your plant water as directed. Sometimes you need to re-pot your plants in new soil. Ask at your local garden centre what they suggest. Sometimes your plant has outgrown its pot and needs a slightly bigger one, but if you don't give food to your plant it will likely never get to this point.


If you actually want to learn something about it, read on...

Mend your own clothes- patching jeans and shirts

I took patching my jeans to spectacular new heights in high school. I had one pair that was more patch than jean. They fit like a glove... mostly because I remade them that way. I would pin the patch onto my jeans while wearing them (safety pins of course), take them off, and then sew the patch like that. Usually with contrasting thread and embroidery floss.

I'm not that radical anymore, but I still enjoy a good patch on a knee or two. Elbow patches on sweaters are endearing. Inner thigh patches are a little bit embarrassing, mostly because I don't really want to draw attention to that spot, and patches tend to draw the eye.

That said, I must be a little more gentle on my clothes than I used to be. I almost never blow out the knees of my jeans. I mostly need to patch the outside edges where the fabric wears from use along the seam at my hip. Or moth holes in my favourite wool sweaters. (Bloody moths)