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.

Rose hip syrup with honey

Rosehips contain 20x more Vitamin C than you find in oranges, and you can find them growing on rose bushes everywhere. Some are larger and others smaller, but they're essentially the same. If you pick them after first frost they're a bit sweeter, but they're ready once they go all red.



Ingredients

Honey
Rosehips
Water

Time for tea- herbal tea blends and recipes

I have a great teapot which has an infuser under the lid, so I can make up a whole pot at a time, but I also use a tea ball for individual cups. Herbal tea usually takes about five minutes to steep. Sweeten with a bit of honey to keep the complex flavour palette.

Peppermint tea-
There isn't much more simple than this. Use one teaspoon of dried or 1 tablespoon fresh leaves per cup.

Lavender tea-
One tablespoon of fresh or dried lavender flowers per cup of water. You can add mint or lemon balm as you like.

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-