Preserving Summer Herbs

by Erin Fossett

September is a month of changes. When our lives were bound more closely to the land, it was a time of hope, and celebration of the harvest. It was also a busy season, as farmers worked feverishly to bring in their crops before the first freeze. There was a feeling of abundance, but also of transition, of letting go.  We still feel it, watching the change of the seasons. The days continue to shorten, leaves change colors, and even in the glory of Indian summer the nights take on a chill. In our own gardens, the plants that we nurtured so carefully for months are now going to seed, losing their summertime glory. Soon it will be time to clip away the old growth and turn the soil over, preparing the ground for winter.

One way to celebrate the energy of September is to preserve the flavors and scents of summer through herbal teas, vinegars, flavored oils, and honeys. Whether you have a full garden, a kitchen window box, or buy your herbs dried and in bulk, these creations are fun and relatively simple to make, and offer another way to share seasonal bounty with your friends. (For buying dried herbs in bulk, as well as herbal making supplies, visit Mountain Rose Herbals.)

Herbal Iced Tea Cubes. In September, I try to make daily batches of strong herbal tea, using the last of my chamomile, lemon balm, peppermint, and catnip. I let the tea steep for up to eight hours, and then pour into ice cube trays and freeze. The finished ice cubes will store in freezer bags for up to three months, and can be added to smoothies, or melted and diluted with hot water for a refreshing cup of herbal tea.

Ice cube trays are also handy for freezing big batches of fresh tomato sauce or pesto, using the last basil from your garden. Let the sauce cool thoroughly before freezing, and store the frozen cubes in freezer bags for up three months, thawing as needed.

Herb Infused Vinegars. Herbal vinegars make a flavorful addition to salad dressings and dips, as well as a nourishing daily tonic to help strengthen the blood or tone the digestive system. Good herbs to use in your vinegars include garlic, basil, oregano, thyme, tarragon, and sage. Experiment with combinations. Pairings of dill and peppermint, or fennel and ginger, are wonderful for upset stomachs.

Place about a cup of finely chopped fresh herbs (or ¼ cup of dried herbs) into clean pint-sized glass canning jars. Cover the herbs with organic apple cider vinegar, leaving about an inch of room at the top of the jar. (Avoid white vinegar, which is bleached with harsh chemicals.) Cover the jar tightly, label with the ingredients and date, and then store the mixture in a dark place at room temperature, shaking vigorously every few days.

After about four to six weeks, strain out the vinegar by pouring it through a colander lined with a doubled piece of cheesecloth or an old sheet. Be sure to squeeze out all of the infused liquid from the plant material before composting. Store the mixture in glass jars or tincture bottles, carefully marked with the ingredients and date. The finished vinegar will keep for a year.

Herbal Oils. You can also use herbs to make flavored olive oils, for both internal and external uses. In this case, place 1/3 cup of already dried plant materials in a clean, dry glass jar. (Make certain the jar is completely dry, as any moisture can ruin the oil.) Cover the herbs with high quality, organic olive oil, leaving an inch or two of room at the top of the jar. Cover this mixture with a cloth for the first few days, before you seal the lid, as the plants will continue to expel gasses as they absorb the oil. Also be sure to check the mixture after a few hours to see if more oil is needed to cover the herbs.

Let the oil sit in a sunny window for 10 to 14 days, shaking daily, before straining the plant material out. Store the finished oil in a dark place, and use within a year. You might want to try garlic, oregano, or basil for use in cooking or dressings. I also like to make a mixture of calendula blossoms, lavender, and plantain for a wonderful skin conditioner.

NOTE: An easy way to dry herbs is to scatter them across an old window screen outside or in a sunny window, or hang bunches upside down until the blossoms dry and can be extracted.

Herb Infused Honey. Herbal honeys provide a wonderful addition to hot teas during the winter cold season. To make these, melt a quart of locally grown (if available) wildflower honey over low heat until it is just warmed through. (Don’t let it boil.) Add ½ cup of finely chopped fresh herbs, such as lavender, ginger, lemon balm, or chamomile. (Use only ¼ cup if the herbs are dried.) Leave the mixture on low heat for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, and then pour the honey (without straining) into heat-resistant glass canning jars. Secure the lids and label with the ingredients and date. The herbs will continue to infuse the honey as it sits. You can then either strain out the honey as you use it, or drink the tea with the herbs still in it. The honey will keep for 18 months.

Erin Fossett is a freelance fiction writer and editor living in Colorado. Her fiction has been awarded by the Colorado Council on the Arts. She provides writing coaching and editing services through wild Word Writing and can be reached at wildwordmedia AT msn DOT com.

All photos taken by Erin Fossett.

At Home in Summer: Staycation

Shaw & Pepe enjoying their staycation. (Photo by Waverly Fitzgerald)

By Waverly Fitzgerald

At home in the summer seems like an oxymoron. at least in Seattle, where summers are glorious. Most of us spend as much time as possible outside. And even when we stay home, we stay outside our homes: on balconies, on decks, sitting on the front porch.

So I thought instead of writing about projects to do inside the home, I’d write about staycations, a neologism which made it into the 2009 Merriam-Webster dictionary, and other ways of being at home and not at home at the same time.

Staycation

The word is generally used to describe a vacation that you spend staying at home, perhaps doing things you wouldn’t normally have time for, maybe reading, gardening, watching videos, or working on some creative pursuit. One of my co-workers took off a week recently to finish her novel. She didn’t finish it, but she did take it apart, spreading the pages across her living room, and reconstructed it with a better sense of the direction she needed to take to finish it.

This one seems to require a certain amount of self-discipline, that I’m not sure I have. How do you resist the urge to clean out the basement or watch daytime TV? But maybe that is the perfect staycation.

Tourist in my Town

This is a slightly different version of a staycation and a game I like to play. You simply visit the places where you would normally take guests. In Seattle, that might be the Pike Place Market, the Ballard locks or the troll under the Fremont Bridge.

You can also make a hotel or B&B reservation and truly immerse yourself in the vacation experience. One year for my birthday, my friend Kim and I stayed at a boutique hotel in downtown Seattle. Some of the musicians for the Bumbershoot festival were staying there, as well, and we got to talk to them during the wine tasting the hotel sponsored every evening. We ate out every meal and spent a long leisurely afternoon at my favorite book store, Elliott Bay.

You can also play this game by picking a neighborhood or nearby community which you don’t know well. Then spend the day exploring it, just as if you were a tourist. I did this with my friend Michael one Saturday in the then-sleepy (now ultra hip) Seattle neighborhood of Ballard. We wandered down the main street, window-shopping, and found a cool new coffee shop.

The Random Road Trip

Photo by Waverly Fitzgerald

This reminds me of another game you can play if you want to get a fresh perspective on your life. I’ve never tried this one but I read it a long time ago in a magazine and never forgot it. The author wrote about going on weekend drives with her children where they would flip a coin every time they came to a corner to decide which way to turn.

You could also do the same thing on a walk around your neighborhood, just as a way to break up routine and perhaps find yourself in someplace totally unexpected.

While researching this article, I found a wonderful essay written by Matt Hannafin about exploring his new home, Portland, using a variation of this technique.

Secular Sabbath

You could also just take a vacation from technology which is the idea behind the secular sabbath. Mark Bittman wrote about this in the New York Times in March 2008, and the term has spread rapidly. It refers to unplugging from all sorts of technology: computers, cell phones, laptops, MP3 players, televisions, etc.. My amazing web designer, Joanna Powell Colbert, wrote about the pleasure of unplugging in a recent entry of her blog.

Julia Cameron suggested a version of this in The Artist’s Way when she recommended her readers undertake a week of reading deprivation. I regularly assigned this to students when I was teaching a class based on the book, an assignment that was always greeted with howls of outrage and disbelief. More howls when I said that even listening to NPR was forbidden.

Although this is a difficult exercise, it produces amazing results. Sometimes reading is a way to insulate yourself, to keep your mind occupied with external input. Freed of the constant barrage of other people’s words, you get a chance to find out what you’re thinking or to interact with your environment in a new way. And isn’t that part of the joy of a vacation?

For more information about vacations, consider attending the National Vacation Summit, sponsored by the Take Back Your Time Day movement. John deGraaf, the founder of Take Back Your Time Day, always gathers the most interesting thinkers and activities in the fields of public policy, education, science and art. The conference occurs on August 10 through 12 in Seattle.

Have you ever tried any of these ideas in your life? Or do you have your own ideas about how to take a vacation while staying home?