Henny Penny Farmette

Pomegranate seeds add sweetness and crunch to salads but can eaten fresh, or you can extract the juice to make a lovely sauce.

Use fresh pomegranate juice if you would like a delicious sauce to use in salad dressing or other culinary creations. Pomegranate sauce made into a warm salad dressing dresses up a plain spinach salad like nothing else.

The warm pomegranate dressing is made by combining to blend 1/2 cup pomegranate sauce (recipe below), 1 Tablespoon of honey, 1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger, 1 cup California extra-virgin olive oil, and 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts. Warm the dressing and pour over over a pound of freshly washed spinach leaves, 1/2 cup red onion, and 1 orange (peeled, seeded and with segments quartered).

Here’s how to make and preserve the pomegranate sauce.

INGREDIENTS:

5 cups of pomegranate juice (reamed from about 10 large fruits)

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Wash thoroughly ten large pomegranates.

Cut in half and use a reamer to extract the juice from the seeds, discarding the membrane.

Strain the juice through cheesecloth several times to obtain 5 cups.

Combine the juice, lemon, and sugar in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.

Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat and simmer at 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

Reduce the sauce by half.

PROCESS:

Have ready 4 half-pint jam jars that have been washed on a hot cycle in the dishwasher and dried.

Fill the canner with water, place on heat, and bring to a simmer.

Simmer jar lids and rings.

Fill the jars with the pomegranate sauce, leaving 1/4 inch head space.

Affix hot lids to the jars and screw on the rings.

Lower the jars on the rack into the canner (water must cover the jars by at least an inch) and boil the water for 10 minutes.

Remove the jars of sauce and allow to cool.

Check seals, label, and then store until needed.

For more delicious recipes, farming tips, and beekeeping strategies as well as a cozy mystery, check out the first book in the Henny Penny Farmette series from Kensington Books in New York. Available on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and in other online and traditional bookstores everywhere.

I’ve caught it . . . that nasty little bug affecting the throat and gut. Despite my best hygienic efforts at not catching the malady that many of my friends have recently endured, I have come down with it.

It started as a scratchy sore throat. Then a queasy stomach. Hoarseness and discomfort when swallowing followed. And the queasiness intensified to the point where even the sight of food sickened me. Oh, joy! Just what I didn’t want for the upcoming Thanksgiving week!

It’s always a good idea when you’re coming down with a cold or flu to increase your intake of fluids–herbal teas, juice, water, and popsicles. My former Chinese Tai Chi teacher advocated ginger tea to treat this type of malady; it’s my favorite home treatment for colds and flu.

Honey soothes the inflamed throat passages. Ginger settles the stomach. In fact, ginger has been used medicinally for 2,000 years in China to treat stomach upset, nausea, flatulence, and diarrhea.

GINGER TEA WITH HONEY

Ingredients:

1.5 inches of peeled and sliced fresh ginger root (about 1/2 cup)

5 to 6 cups of water

optional: 1/2 lemon, washed and sliced

optional: 2 sticks of cinnamon

honey or brown sugar, to taste

Directions:

Pour the water into a sauce pan.

Drop in the slices of ginger. Optional: add slices of lemon and cinnamon.

Simmer for 10 minutes.

Pour tea into a cup.

Stir in honey or brown sugar to sweeten.

Enjoy.

Cold and flu season is upon us. Here in Northern California, temps are plunging into the 20s and 30s and snow may be on its way. It is important to have a strong immune system to fight off these winter maladies.

A frozen sheet of ice blocks the cork (permitting honeybees to drink) from moving in our backyard fountain

I’m taking down another jar of honey from the shelf where I stacked the jars over the summer. One teaspoon of raw buckwheat honey taken daily has been recommended by doctors as a powerful booster for the immune system. See http://www.prweb.com/releases/honey/buckwheat-honey-raw/prweb10242276.htm.

With the weather change comes the cold and flu season, so I shouldn’t have been surprised that my husband came home from work yesterday feeling out of sorts. Our neighbors have all been sick with colds and he’s concerned that he might have caught the bug.

I made him a cup of hot ginger tea, sweetened with raw honey. Honey can be consumed directly from the spoon or in hot water or in a tea or infusion with lemon.

I became a believer in honey and ginger tea years ago while studying Tai Chi. My 84-year-old teacher swore by drinking hot tea made by steeping an inch or two of fresh, peeled ginger and adding lemon and honey. Her stamina was nothing short of remarkable–she not only did Tai Chi, but sang opera, painted Chinese brush paintings, and taught many classes on herbs, reflexology, and other aspects of health and fitness in California and Hawaii.

Using sheets and blankets, we’ve covered the citrus trees around our farmette as temps are expected to plunge into the 20s tonight

Holistic practitioners have long espoused belief in the healthful benefits of raw honey. Honey was used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for a variety of maladies. Modern medical doctors and researchers have extolled honey’s antiseptic, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties, and many cold and flu preparations contain honey as an ingredient. It a cost-effective way to treat a cough. See http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/honey/AN01799

Honey is the only food on the planet that does not go bad. It may crystallize, but it never becomes sugar. Crystallized honey in a jar can be returned to liquid by removing the lid and setting the jar in warm water. Never heat honey in the microwave or boil it because it will destroy the natural enzymes. And never give honey to a child under the age of one year because of the risk of their developing botulism.

You don’t have to wait to start gaining the benefit of raw honey. You can strengthen your immune system now before the dreaded cold and flu sweeps through your neighborhood. Daily consumption of a teaspoon of raw honey (from flower-fed bees) that has been minimally filtered can be good for your health and, especially, your immune system.

For thousands of years, humankind has relied on the healing properties of herbs, plucked in the wild or cultivated in gardens, to treat what has ailed them. Modern holistic practitioners value herbs and plant-based medicines as integral elements in re-balancing the health of their patients and fostering wellness and robust vitality.

Doctors trained in allopathic or mainstream Western medicine traditionally have prescribed chemically based medicines (that usually have side effects). However, Western-trained doctors may also recommend the use of herbs for certain health issues. Always talk with your physician before starting any type of self-treatment with herbs. Keep your physician informed of herbs you may be taking. Herbs or herb formulations can interact or even block the efficacious effect of the medications your doctor has prescribed.

Dr. Andrew Weil, the Harvard-trained physician who pioneered the field of integrative medicine (combining mainstream and alternative medicine) and also wrote several best-selling books, suggests three specific herbs can reduce inflammation in the body–tumeric, ginger, and boswellia. These herbs can be found in specific doses formulated in capsules to make it easy to take the right amount. See, http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA142972/Anti-Inflammatory-Herbs.com.

In traditional Chinese medicine, four herbs play vital roles in achieving a state of well-being. Rosemary stimulates brain alertness, mint aids in digestion, sage supports mental acuity, and parsley protects the eyes. See, http://www.doctoroz.com/blog/mao-shing-ni-lac-dom-phd/4-commonly-used-healing-herbs.

Whether herbs are used dried or fresh, made into a tea, tincture, culinary preparation, or packaged in capsules and other forms, they are often included as part of a larger health-focused program to restore and maintain a balanced, healthy body.

Ayurveda, a healing system used in India since ancient times, utilizes herbs in treatments that can encompass many healing modalities. According to Ayurveda, a balanced, healthy body depends on a strong metabolic and immune system, attained through proper nutrition, exercise, yoga, and meditation (to relieve tension and stress that can accumulate in the body and mind).

Herbs used in Ayurveda are many and include (but are not limited to) andrographis, ashwagandha, black mustard seed, cardamom, coriander, cumin, ginger, purslane (pigweed), tulsi (holy basil), tumeric, and visnaga.

During the medieval period, gardens of priests, convents, and cloisters contained the herbs that members of the clergy as well as ordinary people believed could treat or cure them of their ailments. In the twelfth century, German mystic Saint Hildegard of Bingen wrote about health and healing, detailing medicinal uses of over 200 healing plants.

Although most herbs are fairly easy to grow, take the time to learn about them. Provide for the plant’s needs (water, nutrients, sun or shade requirement). Find out when to harvest and how best to use the plant for your health and well-being. Find out what the negative factors might be in using a specific herb or medicinal plant. When you engage in this type of work, you continue a practice begun thousands of years ago that can have health benefits for you today. But don’t forget to have that discussion with your doctor before taking medicinal herbs.