Different apple sauce recipes

If you've been storing apples it might be time to start using them up before they go bad. You can make up some of these recipes and freeze them, or can them... Or, like at my house, just eat so much apple sauce that you feel oogy.

Save some cash- grow your own raspberries

Raspberries are ridiculously expensive in stores, probably because they have to be hand-picked and are very delicate little fruit and they don't last very long after picking. But, raspberry canes are extremely productive, and with a little bit of care and attention you can provide yourself with these tasty, zingy treats for most of the summer. Any investment you make in buying canes will pay you back within a couple years. After that the rest is just gravy. Or something.

The kind you want to get are the 'everbearing' variety, which means that they'll fruit twice in one season. Yes, even in Canada. I also got a variety that also has fewer prickles on the canes. This is a good thing come picking time.

Herbal hot chocolate

Herbal Hot Chocolate 

• 3 oz really good chocolate (the best you can afford)
• 2c milk of your choice (cow, almond, rice, coconut, etc)
• 1/4c cream (optional- cow or coconut)
• 2tsp dried herbs (combinations suggested below, or experiment)

Method

• Put your milk and herbs in a small sauce pan and heat gently and slowly (you don't want to scorch the milk and have it stick to the bottom of the pan
• Take it off the heat and let it cool while you chop the chocolate
• Strain the herbs out of the milk and back into the sauce pan. Add the chocolate.
• Heat again very slowly and over a low heat. The chocolate will melt. Whisk very frequently.
• Pour into a mug when it is quite warm to the touch, but not boiling.

List of good herbs and other ingredients- mint, bee balm, lemon balm, lemon verbena, sweet violet, rose, citrus (from organic peels), ginger, lavender, raspberry leaves

Herb combination suggestions- White chocolate and lavender, milk chocolate with citrus and ginger, white chocolate with sweet violet and rose, dark chocolate with raspberry leaves and mint, dark chocolate with lemon balm and ginger.

Hopefully this will help you get through the long, dark teatime of the soul in January and February... Along with garden catalogues.

How to grow and store your own herbal tea

Some herbs to try-
Mint, Lavender, Lemon verbena, Lemon balm, Thyme, Chamomile, Rosemary, Fennel, Sage, Lemon grass (will grow in a pot and can be over-wintered that way), Rose hips (I've mentioned this before, but they have an amazing amount of vitamin C), Linden tree flowers (harvest before the flower bud opens, and they taste like honey), Hyssop (lovely, fragrant leaves and the bees love the flowers), Clover blossoms,Organic citrus peels (eat the fruit and save the peels from the outside. Trim off the sour, white rind to improve the flavour), Blackberry and raspberry leaves, and Borage (the flowers are sweet and the leaves a bit cucumber-y). If you want to get some nutrition into yourself in early spring try gathering some nettles. They are surprisingly healthy, with vitamin C, B1, K, carotenoids, and a lot of calcium and magnesium and a few other minerals. Use gloves to gather them because of the stinging, but after being immersed in hot water they are safe to handle. Young nettles were commonly chopped up and added to pottages in the spring to help people recover after a winter of less food (and vitamins and minerals). Later in the summer they get too woody and fibrous. In fact, nettles are another source of spinnable fibres and are processed like flax.

How to dry and store herbs and plant material-