Homemade Pine Needle Vinegar: A Balsamic Vinegar Stand-In

Six weeks ago, I picked some of our treasured wild medicinal plants--Y'know, those things some folks refer to as weeds?  Included among them was a harvest of fresh pine needles.

I had read this recipe in which a pine needle vinegar is made by combining apple cider vinegar and clean chopped pine needles.

So I gathered, cleaned, and snipped enough pine needles to pack into a jar, and covered it with an equal amount of ACV per the recipe instructions.  The recipe specifies white pine needles, but its author and all the other herbal recipes I've found online say any type pine needle can be used, the flavor varying somewhat from astringent to pleasantly close to balsamic in flavor.

It was worth a try!  So it's been jarred for 6 weeks, awaiting its debut...

Tonight was the night!  I filtered it into a clean glass jar.  And I have to say, it smelled delightful!

This first batch came to a little over a quart. (I used the correct proportions based on the recipe, but not the exact recipe measurements.)  It has a very piney fragrance, and it does have a balsamic-y flavor minus the depth...it's much brighter. No, it does not taste like turpentine, ha!  Even if it had, I'd have used it as a great homemade pine cleaner, but this batch is good enough to eat.   I'm looking forward to substituting it for balsamic vinegar in some recipes.

It's so easy to make, it's definitely worth experimentation, and I will be making more!

Have you ever tried it?  What's brewing/fermenting/cooking in your kitchen?


.

You Know You're in the Country When...

Seen in passing, from the car window, on one of our day-drives in more rural areas.  Due to my affliction of a wayyy too urban-based past, I have no idea what a butt pen is.

But I  know where you can get one!


And making up some possible definitions with Jack was pretty entertaining...  lol   :-D

.

The Best Kind of Mail

Beautiful, and it smells as good as it looks!  There's nothing quite like receiving packages in the mail (anything but bills, right?), and today the bar of handcrafted calendula tangerine soap I won (yay!!) in the recent giveaway over at LaughingDuckFarm arrived.  Thanks, Melodie!  I'm passing along the link one more time for anyone who wants one of these fragrant and skin-nourishing bars for yourself.

Lovely, and it made my day!

Hope yours was good, too :-D

Thrifty Thangs

Thrift Store...the phrase makes me nearly as happy as the phrase Junk Store! (as in the antique store in which you can spend hours digging through dusty boxes, and most things are not overpriced)

As we've de-cluttered, I've been loathe to fill up the cleared spaces with more stuff.  However, I do have a pretty scaled-down mental wish list of a few items I look for in thrift stores.

I've hit the mother lode a few times at a local thrift store that really moves their stock quickly and keeps prices low.  Since I don't even have an "extras" budget, affordable to me means it truly needs to be necessary AND affordable.

Here are some thrift store things over the course of time I've unexpectedly found useful in our home:

1.  Flatware.  Go ahead, laugh!  but I so DO buy it at the thrift store.  I HATE running out of spoons or forks. Whatever my original set used to be, it's not a matched set any more.  But that's okay since I'm not always a matched set kind of girl.  Over the years, spoons have been taken in lunches and ended up who-knows-where, knives were used here and there and in the garden, and...well, voila!  When I found a box full of unmatched forks, knives, and spoons and saw the price, it said Buy Me.  At 93 cents for a drawer full, thrifting ROCKS :-D

2.  Bedside table.  (For my reading lamp, medical stuff, basket of books, and to set mugs of tea.) Actually, the "table" I found was an all-wood, perfect condition piano bench.  Lift the lid?  Vintage sheet music, to the top!  Half price, it was mine for $12.00.   Actually, for me that's at the top of what I'll ever pay, but this was something we'd been looking for.  I can't beat the $12.00 at any bargain store.

3.  Bed linens.  We have a queen sized bed and we use our linens the European way, with a comforter inside a duvet cover as the top cover, and a bottom sheet beneath.  This makes for a really easy mix-and-match.  Any used comforter in good condition (and washed well a couple of times in hot water if straight from the thrift store) can be the filler for the duvet, which fits like a pillow case over it.  I'm allergic to synthetics for the most part, so it's easy to find all-cotton duvets occasionally, and odd or matched pillowcases.  I've found some beautifully embroidered ones as well.  The pillowcases run 50 cents or less, and the duvets perhaps $3.00.  I like very light colored linens on our own bed, so I just buy with that in mind.  Dust ruffles are also a couple of dollars or less, so with a solid color duvet and mix-and-match pillowcases and dust ruffles, it doesn't matter which things go to the wash, there's always a way to put fresh ones on and still have some variety.  I've outfitted the guest bed in the same way.  I wish I'd thought of this system years ago!  P.S.  Yesterday I found a queen sized comforter in a beautiful pattern, Ralph Lauren brand (even though I couldn't care less about brands...just mentioning because it indicates its original cost).  Five dollars, hooray!

4.  Older kitchen items.  Casseroles, utensils, baking dishes.  It seems like the older ones are a better fit in my kitchen, and the price is right.

5.  Curtains and table linens.  I've bought these only when I see something that's a perfect fit for my preferences and if they're the right price.  In the bedroom I have understated lace panels at the windows.  I could never have afforded them from the retail store.  Total cost of these?  Four panels, 4 dollars.  I also pick up some really beautiful placemats and tablecloths this way.  Since there are just 2 of us, a couple placemats at a dime apiece is just fine, and it doesn't take much effort to add that small touch to make mealtime together even nicer.

6.  Dishes, cups, dinner plates.  We have an odd assortment, but they're ones I like.  I leave the expensive ones on the shelves but buy the "grandma-ish" loners and other mismatch china for pennies.  I also use a couple of older china dishes on my dresser to corral the girly stuff like lotion, etc.

7.  Canning and storage jars.  I love finding these, but usually someone's beat me to the punch.  Even so, I'll find the odd canning or storage jar in the older shapes and brands now and then, for a little loose change.

Sometimes we've learned the hard way that just because something's a deal, it's not ALWAYS such a deal.  Beware of stinky sofas.  A friend and I went in together on one for a young family setting up a new apartment.  What had looked great in the store was ...aromatic...in the worst sense of the word.  Not just stinky, but stanky.  I have one chair I just love from the thrift store, but most times we steer clear of upholstered things since it's hard to get them really clean if they're in bad condition.  And there are some really stinky sofas out there!

Maybe it sounds like I shop thrift stores all the time? I don't. And I don't go to any other type store without a list, because for the past few years we've needed to budget carefully (and I know myself and my tendency towards buyer's remorse.)  Those extras coins add up, so we keep a jar and collect it.  But it's nice to have the option of some quality items as real deals when we do want to carefully aquire something.

Two of my favorite finds were a 6 foot all wood buffet with drawers (in need of stripping and refinishing because someone had gone crazy with stain and polyurethane, ha) half-price at $25.00, and a circa 1970s Singer sewing machine/table with electric treadle, half-price at $12.00.

I know a lot of you guys are bargain-a-holics, so I'm among experts, ha!  


What are some of your tips for thrift stores, and what have some of your best finds been?




.

Yay, I Won!

There was recently a giveaway over at Laughing Duck Farm's blog, and yippee, I won some terrific handcrafted herbal soap!!  I'll take pics when I receive it...I've always wanted to learn to make wonderful soaps, but just haven't taken on that project yet.  I love seeing the great originality and beauty of the diverse handmade items from so many other blog neighbors out here.

For a peek at Melodie's great Etsy site, here's the link.

First Papaya Harvest

This was the first year any of our papaya trees bore fruit.  We never had any put on fruit until this year, and we weren't sure how long the fruits would last before a freeze threatened.  We found out...

One of the trees appeared to be a yellow-fruiting papaya, and the other the ruby type fruit.  We watched with great anticipation as the fruits developed in a spiraling pattern up the trunks, slowly growing larger.  There were nearly 20 on the ruby papaya, and a half dozen or more on the yellow.

We had to harvest all the papayas prematurely, or at least earlier than we would have chosen, when we heard that the temps would drop to freezing for not one day, but at least two in a row.  Still, I wrapped them as well as possible in sheets.  But the night before all that, we went ahead and brought in the fruits that were big enough to allow to ripen and eat.

The yellow papaya fruits were smaller than the ruby papayas, but they still got bigger than what I've seen in the stores.  They are more round, as well.  This one is the first of any of them to ripen since we harvested the lot.  The skins turn mottled and patchy and aren't the kind of "supermarket attractive," but the real treasure is on the inside...

The flesh of the yellow papayas is a pale cantaloupe color.  It appears these seeds were not fully developed, or at least that's my guess, since we harvested them early.

Usually, the seeds are plentiful,dark, and coated with a thick gel coat...papaya "caviar."  We'll save these, just in case they germinate, but it's likely they are too immature to be viable.

But the proof's not just in the hardiness, but also in the taste.  I've tasted some bland and downright yuck papayas before from the store, and others that were wonderful.  For me, papaya has been an acquired taste, but I was pleasantly surprised tonight when we shared a half for dinner.  This particular one had a mellow honey taste with mild papaya flavor...not insipidly mild, and also not heavily musky like some papayas.  It was sweet and tender, so...SUCCESS!!!!

We're new to being able to actually have any fruit to show for our (well, Jack's) tree-growing efforts.  But it is worth the wait!  And I'm not sure I'm yet adjusted, even after 8 years, of having fresh fruit ripening in the middle of winter.  But NO complaints!

Are you northerners eating your jars of apple butter yet and drinking spiced cider?  It's COLD up there :)


And a question for any Floridians...do your papaya trees die all the way back in the winter likes ours are?  If not, what's your secret?


And final question...I posted these pics a larger size than most of my posts.  On your screen, do they bleed over the column edges, or are they just fine?  If they are problematic for some of your formats, I'll shrink them again.

Hope everyone is staying warm!

Herbin' Legend: Swedish Bitters

This past year, I enjoyed taking beginner's steps in making some of our own herbal medicinals.   Many medicinal plants are what mainstream gardeners consider weeds.  Others can be found as easily as looking right in a basic spice collection.

My focus is to use herbs to both help cleanse and regenerate...detoxify and nurture healing.  We use most of our herbs right now in the form of teas made as either infusions (hot or boiling water poured over an amount of herb and steeped) or decoctions (herb brought to a particular temperature/boiling for an amount of time) depending on the recommendation I find in some of the books I have.  Sometimes we use herbal tinctures, since we don't always have a good source for the fresh plants or the dried herb (and if bought they can be expensive).  The tinctures preserve the dried or fresh herbs beautifully...there are specific ways to tincture specific plants, and specific parts of the plants and harvest times that are optimal...so I am using herbal how-to books a lot right now to learn those things.  I'll make a list of some of the books I'm really loving...soon :)

An interesting development has been that Jack and I have discovered that our personal diets often lacked foods that are bitter, to whatever degree.  Many of the herbs we are using have varying degrees of bitterness, not all unpleasant.  As we accustom ourselves to drinking these throughout the day, and pairing them with better foods including greens that sometimes have a bitter taste, we've come to realize that the actual bitterness within these healing foods is something we've been lacking.  Oftentimes, they help cleanse and tone our bodies, noticeably our muscles, and as a result Jack has had less muscle wear and tear, and less pain or recovery time when his physically-active job runs long.  His legs used to be in knots when he tried to sleep, and he was often plagued with cramps and muscle fatigue.

Tonics made of bitter herbs have been around for lifetimes.

In reading a couple books by the late Austrian herbalist Maria Treben, she repeatedly mentions a particular bitters tonic called Swedish Bitters...here's an article that describes it in more detail.

I decided to make my own Swedish Bitters tincture from the original "recipe," and found a way to order it here (no, I don't get paid to mention this, it's simply where I ordered it).

It's as simple as adding at least 40 proof alcohol to the dried herb mix, covering it and letting it steep in a warm place (sunlight's ok) for 2 weeks, shaking it daily to make sure it gets distributed throughout the liquid.  Then you can strain the liquid off into amber bottles for use.  The instructions state that the herb can be left in the larger container and small amounts strained off as needed.

The herb mixture has a camphor-ish smell, not unpleasant.  (Do any of you get a kick smelling herbs like I do?? OK, maybe I'm weird, but I love it) I lidded my jar with the standard canning lid and ring, but put a piece of plastic wrap underneath it before screwing it on to prevent the alcohol from coming into contact with the metal.

Voila...Swedish Bitters!

We'll use this, when it's done, for a variety of household DIY personal care needs topically as well as take it as a tincture whenever we want our bitters "tonic."

I made some of this years ago, and it keeps indefinitely once made and stored in a dark closet.  It darkens considerably to a black-brown slurry which takes on the strong smell and healing properties of the herbs, for so many uses, it's sort of a  herbal workhorse.  I'll write more on it as we strain off the finished product and use it, but I wanted to include these quick pics to show how easy it is to make, and to see if any of you out there have ever used Swedish bitters or any other bitters formula before.

Anyone?  I'd love to hear your go-to homemade herbal "old faithfuls"!