Hello herb lovers,

Every now and then I read a post by another blogger I feel compelled to comment on, especially if it means that Herbology can come to the aid of someone who is in need of herbal assistance. The recipient of today’s herbal emergency is Lee from Urban Cultivation.

When I read that Lee is about to have a a healthy crop of lemon grass that he does not know what to do with I ran to my herbal library to gather as much information as I could find (in 7 minutes).

Well Lee, fret no more, help is at hand……even for a herbivore like yourself

First, medicinally lemon grass has been used as a mild antibiotic for flu, fevers and pain, colic, gas and stomach problems. It relaxes the gut, is a mild antidepressant and helps lift your spirits when your mood is sour. The essential oil is an antifungal and antibacterial agent which can be used locally on ringworm.

You can crush the leaves and stalks to release the citronella - rub onto your skin to repel mozzies and other flying bugs. lemon grass tea is great for the complexion (listen up teenagers!!) The tea makes a great iced tea in summer too.

Culinary uses are many, but since Lee specified non meat versions, I will concentrate on those for now.

Coconut and Lemon Grass Ice Cream courtesy of The Kitchen & Garden Book of Herbs by J. Houdret and J. Farrow

Serves 5-6

Ingredients

4 lemon grass stalks (10cm pieces from the bottom)

400ml coconut milk

3 egg yolks

90g caster sugar

2tsp cornflour

150ml whipping cream

rind of 1 lime finely grated

lime slices to decorate

For the lime syrup:

75g caster sugar

75ml water

1 lime thinly sliced, plus 30ml lime juice

1) Cut lemon grass stalks in half length ways, bruise with rolling pin (or something else that’s heavy)

Put them in a heavy pan, add coconut milk and bring to just below boiling point (dont walk away, it happens quickly). Remove from heat and leave to infuse for 30mins - then remove lemon grass.

2) Whisk egg yolks in a bowl with sugar and cornflour until smooth.

3) Gradually pour the coconut and lemon grass milk over the mixture and whisk well.

4) Return the mixture to the pan andheat gently, stirring until the custard starts to thicken. Do not let boil!

5) Remove the custard from heat and strain into a clean bowl. Cover with a circle of dampened greaseproof paper to prevent skin forming. Leave to cool.

6) BY HAND: Whip cream until it has thickened but still falls from the whisk. Stir into custard with the lime rind. Transfer mixture to a freezer proof container and freeze for 2 hours. Remove from freezer and scrape with a fork to breaqk all the ice crystals that have formed. (Whisk or use a food processor to make it smooth). Freeze for another 2hours then whip it all up again.

USING ICE CREAM MAKER: Stir cream & lime rind, into the cooled custard - churn.

7) Spoon the mixture into 5 or 6 dariole moulds and freeze for at least 3 hours.

LIME SYRUP:Heat water and sugar in pan until sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and let boil for 5 minutes without stirring. Reduce heat- add thinly sliced lime, and lime juice - simmer gently for another 5 minutes. Leave to cool.

9) Un-mould ice cream, spoon over lime syrup and decorate with lime slices.

Thai Vegetable and Coriander Curry with Lemon Grass Jasmine Rice courtesy of The Kitchen & Garden Book of Herbs by J. Houdret and J. Farrow

hmm…….this is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge recipe. Lee, darling, if you want it, give me a shout, but for now I’ll just give you the Lemon Grass Rice part, ok?

For the rice:

225g jasmine rice, rinsed

1 lemon grass stalk, outer leaves removed cut into 3 pieces. (it will probably be the usual 10 cm piece from the bottom)

6 cardamom pods,, bruised

1) Tip the rinsed rice into a large pan, and add the pieces of lemon grass and cardamom pods. Pour over 475ml water, bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover and allow to cook for 10-15 minutes or until water is absorbed and rice is tender and slightly sticky. Season with salt, cover and leave to stand for 10 minutes.

2) Remove the spices and serve with curry. Sprinkle with coriander leaves.

There you go Lee (and everyone else), a multitude of applications. So many possibilities to put your crop to use. Definitely give the lemon grass tea a go, it’s a very delicate and pleasing taste

Stay tuned for details of my visit to a local herb nursery and an update on my gardening adventure.

Stay Herbal!

Hello Herb Lovers,

Guess what? The parcels have arrived!! You know what that means, right? Lots of herbal goodies for me to share with you.

Of course they have arrived while I am mid nervous breakdown. Tomorrow is my 40th (good grief has time really gone that fast?) then there will be a 40th birthday bash on saturday and as most of you will already have noticed the “quick and easy” upgrade of my CMS has shut the site down and I am working as hard as I can to get it all back and running. I may even go back up tonight, as long as you guys dont mind a screwy login that doesnt let you logout (then throws you out after 120minutes) it also doesnt talk to the forum login, and there are some questionable colours happening up top. We’ll see how much I can get done.

As much as the upgrade was meant to be “quick and easy” it obviously wasnt. So I thought I would give you something that is quick, easy, and works on so many levels it’s one of my absolute essentials…have it with me wherever I go. I am not the hugest fan of using essential oils because the sheer quantity of plant material necessary to obtain such a small amount of oil. I do believe that there are other ways of using the same plants with similar results. - albeit they may take a bit more work.

But, having said that, I do use some essential oils. The three permanents in my cupboard are Tea Tree, Lavender & Chamomile.

I am now going to show you the easiest remedy you have ever seen. All you need is some carrier oil - in this case I use an organic olive oil, tea tree & lavender essential oils. That’s it.

In this instance I used a roll on perfume bottle (sterilised), filed it most of the way with the organic olive oil, then added 5 drops of Tea Tree and 5 drops of Lavender Essential Oils. Now, that is quite a lot for such a small quantity of carrier oil, but Tea Tree and Lavender are two of the few essential oils that can be put directly onto the skin, so unless you are allergic to the two, you wont have a problem.

Shake it.
Pop the roll on top back on and Robert is your proverbial relative.

How easy was that?

As I said, this particular remedy I carry everywhere. Due to the antiseptic and antibacterial nature of these oils it is great for nicks and cuts, insect bites - it reduces the itching and swelling. Sunburn, mild burns in general, headaches, herpes sores, the list is practically endless. It is so versatile! and takes less than 2 minutes to make I like using the roll on because it sits happily in my handbag until needed and is a lot less messy than a bottle of oil to carry about. Or you could heat it a little and melt a tiny amount of beeswax into it, pour into a small lip balm size jar, pop in the fridge and when set you have a salve version which is also less messy.

!!! Oh, dont use too much Lavender when pregnant, it is said to be a uterine stimulant.!!!

I hope that wet your appetite for more herbal info I have to impart, but for now that will have to last you until after the weekend - afterall a girl only turns 40 once well, maybe I’ll do it a few years in a row.

Stay Herbal!

Good morning herb lovers,

The term “carbon footprint” is becoming more and more embedded into our language. We are concerned about what effect our energy consumption will have on the planet and our future.

What does this have to do with herbs?

Well I was making an ointment for a friend the other day. Her mother suffers from a very annoying and unsightly form of dermatitis and wanted to try a natural remedy.

The recipe called for a hot infused oil, which was to be made by leaving the herb material soak in oil in a warm oven for 3 to 5 hours. Have the oven running for a small bowl of oil for 3 to 5 hours?! Well I thought that was just a little too much energy consumption for my liking. So instead of the suggested heating method I had the oil on the gas stove, heated it slowly, and then turned it off. I let it sit and do its thing for about an hour before giving it a bit more heat. I did this probably 3 more times each time leaving it an hour or so in between heating.

Have any of you found that you have adjusted the way you use energy at home?

Guess anything that makes the earth last that bit longer and that way providing us with healing herbs longer as well – has got to be a good thing.

Stay Herbal!

Good morning herb lovers,

There is something I find a tad irritating. Scientists!

I realise that that is probably a bit of a strange statement, especially since the light of my life just happens to be a scientist.

You see, my beef isnt with the profession as such but their tendency to boohoo the unproven use of something, then - when they themselves find evidence that it does in fact work in the way it has been used for 100’s of years - tout it as a NEW discovery.

So why am I standing on this here soapbox? Rosemary! That’s why.

Some bright spark out there has realised that Rosemary contains a compound which may be of use in the treatment of neuro-degenerative diseases. Some of you may already know that Rosemary has been used to improve mental faculties for many hundred’s of years. Of course no one then, or until recently, knew that the active ingredient is called carnosic acid (CA), but they did know that Rosemary had very few (if any) side effects. Something this modern day scientist thinks is very good NEW news.

OK, look, I think it is excellent that science is looking into herbs for their answers, I honestly believe that everything we need already exists in nature, it just needs to be found. And that is where scientists do come in handy. If they could just get off their high horse while doing so, and work in co-operation with those people who have a lot of historical and traditional (albeit unproven) knowledge. In this case it will be great to specifically target a specific disease such as Parkinson’s. In the old day Rosemary was used to keep the mind alert, aid concentration and other mental faculties. Unknowingly, by using Rosemary in many low doses as they would have in their diets and in remedies, people had been protecting their brain cells from damage caused by free radicals. Certainly herbs used in such a fashion are more a broad spectrum treatment for overall health instead of a treatment for one singular problem, but I happen to think that that wholistic approach is a good one. What do you think?

Have a read of this Medscape article it’s actually very interesting. Active Compound in Rosemary May Be Neuroprotective by Caroline Cassels (Nov 15,2007). Registration to Medscape is free.

Stay Herbal!

Ok, tell the truth, who of you enjoy a visit to the dentist?

I certainly don’t. I do however seem to spend a lot of time there.

This last visit was a herbal eye opener.

I had to have a tooth out, well there was much more to it but I wont go into gory details. People’s eyes tend to glaze over as they busily head to their happy place and pay no attention to all the graphic information anyway.

Anyway, after the extraction I developed dry socket. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it, neither had I. Basically no blood clot forms to cover the wound. So, after many days of excruciating pain and pain killers having no effect whatsoever, I went back to the dentist. Imagine my delight when he pulled out this very pungent dressing that he was about to plug the wound with. Sniff Sniff Sniff…..could it be?

Yep, clove oil!! A very medieval looking concoction was stuffed into my gum and the pain was gone within 10 minutes.

I thought this was totally brilliant. Complications which arose from a very high tech procedure and which did not ease with modern synthetic drugs, were cured with ancient ingredients. Hurray to Cloves.

Stay Herbal!