Category: Herbal

Make Herb Vinegar Using Fresh Herbs from Your Garden

Herb infused vinegars are easy to make, no chopping, cooking or tricky techniques needed. All that's needed to make herb vinegar are:
* Fresh herbs from your garden (or farmer's market)
* Vinegar (red wine, white wine, rice wine and/or Champagne)
* Glass jars with cork lids (any non-metallic lid will work)
* Sauce pan, strainer and coffee filter
**To make herb vinegar, you'll need one cup of fresh herbs for every two cups of vinegar. This is the basic herb vinegar recipe which can easily be adjusted to include a combination of herbs, garlic cloves, peppercorns and other seasoning.

Gather Fresh Herbs in Morning

Gather herbs from the garden in the morning, just after the dew dries but before the sun hits them, when they are at their peak of flavor. Rinse herbs under cool water, pat dry with kitchen towel then crumple herbs to release maximum flavor.

Fill

Six Herbs You Should Consider Adding to Your Medicinal Herb Garden

I am enjoying this spring weather, and have been busy planning my garden for the upcoming season. One of the areas that I have really been focusing on is my herb garden. Did you know that herbs can be grown for more than just spicing up your food, they can also be used for medicinal purposes? Here are six herbs that you might want to consider adding to your herb garden for medicinal use.

Aloe Vera

One of the most popular plants that is grown for medicinal purposes is the Aloe Vera Plant. Aloe Vera has antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and anti-inflammatory compounds that help make it perfect for use when it comes to wound healing. Simply break off one of the Aloe Vera plant's stems and rub the gel found inside directly onto your wound, burn, or sunburn to take advantage of its natural healing properties.

Echinacea

Well known for …

Use Herbs to Attract Birds, Butterflies and Bees

Until last year I never had experienced the joy of seeing a hummingbird in the wild. Now that I have a yard full of herbs in bloom, several of these tiny birds frequently dart back and forth, from bee balm to the pineapple sage, salvia, catnip, larkspur and foxglove.

I have a very old, woody sage plant that according to the experts should have been removed from the yard years ago. This year, deep inside the sage tangle, hidden by leaves and blooms, nested a family of sparrows. The selection of the sage bush for a nest proved to be a tragic mistake as the small , featherless creatures disappeared one by one on four consecutive nights…evidence that my garden has other visitors after dark.

Luckier was the killdeer, the inland plover that looks as if it belongs at the seashore, which nested in the perennial bed, where herbs and …

Household Uses for Herbs and Spices

Herbs and spices can serve many purposes around the house besides cooking and remedies. They can be great for natural cleaning solutions, warding off summer time bugs, freshen linens, give your home a fresh clean scent with chemical air fresheners, and in many other ways.

Does your garbage disposal smell funny?
Drop a few lemon, lime, or orange peels down there and turn it on. Your kitchen will fill with a fresh citrus scent. You can also sprinkle lavender blossoms in there; about 2 tablespoons should do it. A good way to keep your disposal clean is to regularly (about 1-2 times a week) pour lemon juice or vinegar and a small amount of baking soda down there. It will clean up some of the deposits while it foams and help keep bacteria and fungus from growing in there.

Does your garbage can have a slight odor in the …

How to Store and Use Fresh Herbs in Cooking: A Guide to Adding Creative Flavour and Colour to Meals

Herbs are versatile and make a huge difference when used in dishes. Many chefs resort to using the dried variety of herbs which are commonly available of all supermarkets. However it is very easy to grow herbs at home, either in a herb garden or a window-box.

Top Tips for Growing Herbs

  1. After a season of growth, herbs can be transplanted outdoors.
  2. Mint and tarragon are best planted in their own individual pots otherwise the roots quickly take over the whole container.
  3. Placing a bowl of water near the herbs will keep the air humid, therefore promoting growth.
  4. Keep herbs neat and tidy. The more they are trimmed, the more vigorously they grow.
  5. Take leaves from the outside of the plants so that new shoots appear from the centre and stops plants from become straggly.

Ways to Use Herbs

Using herbs to liven up a meal will bring a taste …

Split Pea Soup with Six Herbs

Forget the ham when making your next split pea soup. This recipe uses a combination of different dried herbs to give flavor without adding meat to the soup.

Split pea soup is often made with diced ham or simmered with a ham bone. While ham products provide great flavor to the split pea soup, it is also great on its own when prepared with different herbs for flavoring.

This recipe uses six different dried herbs, in smaller amounts to not overwhelm the ending soup flavor. The bay leaf, thyme, oregano, savory, basil, and marjoram are all used. If a particular herb is in the pantry that you like better, simply substitute one for another.

The herb split pea soup will serve about 6 to 8 servings, depending on serving size.

Split Pea Soup with Six Herbs

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups chicken broth, plus a little more if a thinner soup

1800 Year Old Chinese Herbs May Show Promise in the Treatment of Cancer

If you have read any of my previous articles on the subject, you probably know how I feel about alternative medicine. I think that some of it is helpful when combined with conventional therapy, but a lot of it is nonsense. Be particularly cautious if they say that a certain natural remedy "clears toxins out of you body."

The foot pads that turn dark are supposed to do just that, but it's just the chemicals in the pads reacting with your foot perspiration. The only way to get toxins out of your body is by dialysis and a process called chelation, which requires hospitalization. Period. The purveyors of the "cleansing" remedies are preying on our fear that we live in a polluted world. That's true, but there's really no way to clear toxins out of your body by swallowing a pill or getting an adjustment from a chiropractor.

There are …

Diabetes; What Herbs Can Help?


Diabetes
 
According to the American Diabetes Association, more than 16 million Americans have diabetes–the 5th leading cause of death in the United States.  Diabetes is a chronic disorder characterized by elevated fasting (overnight) serum glucose (blood sugar) levels, and is essentially caused by the body's inability to produce sufficient insulin–a hormone that allows glucose in the blood to enter cells–and/or by the resistance of cells to the action of insulin.  Thus, glucose remains circulating in the bloodstream–a condition which, in some cases, can be fatal if left untreated.
 
Type I (juvenile-onset) diabetes, also known as insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), requires insulin use to regulate blood glucose.  Type I diabetes is associated with the destruction of insulin-producing beta-cells of the pancreas, and the body's inability to produce enough insulin to regulate blood glucose.  With Type II (adult-onset) diabetes, the body has become resistant to insulin–the body produces insulin but …

6 Herbs Every Gardener Should Grow

My teen and I love growing culinary herbs. Not only do these fragrant plants add flavor to our favorite meals, they are fun and super easy to care for. Herbs are also quite resilient and can often be grown in areas where it's too hot or too sandy for other plants and veggies to grow.

This summer, we've expanded our herb bed and now have 23 different types of culinary herbs including some new "ethnic" herbs for seasoning our Asian and Tex-Mex dishes. While experimenting with new and different herbs is fun, we also make sure to leave plenty of space in the bed for basic herbs that every kitchen should have. Here they are:

Parsley 
Parsley is unique in that it blends well with all kinds of herbs. We use it primarily for seasoning soups, casseroles, egg dishes and vegetables. Six plants will yield enough fresh and dried …

Do Herbs Really Help in the Fight Against Alzheimer's?

If you have had someone in your family diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease then you probably would want to try anything possible to help them or stop the advancement of the disease. Over the past several years doctors and scientists have been working hard to try and find some type of cure for this horrible disease. They have been able to come up with various treatments that they feel can help slow the process.

According to studies that have been done some herbs, or herbal supplements have proved to help slow down the affects of this horrible disease. Of course no one feels that it is a cure, but their are many who feel that it is a step in the right direction. You have probably heard of some supplements such as Ginkgo Bilboa, Omega 3, and a few others. There are still a lot of doctors who just don’t feel …