Hello Herb Lovers,

I already mentioned my glut of lemon balm to you so I thought I would subject you to more lemon balm posts.

A few months ago I made some lemon balm liqueur - for medicinal purposes you understand. I found a recipe I really liked the sound of and it was really an easy process. Well three days ago it was time to savour the result of my efforts and it met with much approval. It is very sweet, almost syrupy in texture. The taste has the lingering hint of lemon but on the back palate you can definitely taste the other spices that made up this recipe. Not the digestive nerve tonic I had originally planned for but a very nice drop indeed. Two of my guinea pigs … ermm … friends like it even better than my pomegranate liqueur (blasphemy!) I think next time I make this, and I definitely will, I will reduce the sugar content and up the spices. I like my herbal liqueurs to have a distinct herbal taste not unlike the taste of Jägermeister.

Here is the recipe I used for those who wish to try. It really is very easy to make your own liqueur.

Melissa Liqueur

2 ½ tsp dried lemon balm

sliced and scraped peel of ¼ lemon

a pinch of coriander

a pinch of cinnamon

2 peppermint leaves

1 cup vodka

½ cup sugar syrup

Place all the ingredients in a bottle and steep 3 weeks. Shake the jar daily during the steeping period. Strain and filter into a dark bottle, adding more sugar to taste. Mature for 2 months.

Sugar Syrup

1 cup white granulated sugar and ½ cup water

Bring to a boil, and stir until all the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is clear. Always cool before adding to alcohol mixture.

Have fun experimenting with your own blends, and do let me know of your success (and disaster) stories. I am always happy to receive and review your efforts - just send in samples

Stay Herbal!

Hello Herb Lovers,

I have a great bunch of Lemon Balm (aka, balsam, melissa) that can be picked now.

While looking for inspirational recipes I came across this Lemon Balm Vinegar recipe on The Herb Gardener blog.

This sounds like a recipe that would really work for my taste buds, not to forget the medicinal benefits of lemon balm either.

For those who don’t know, lemon balm (Melissa Officinalis) is a great relaxant, helps digestion and eases tension headaches. Traditionally used as a mild anti depressant it has recently been shown to also have antiviral properties which may make it an effective tool in the treatment of cold sores. It has a lovely lemony flavour can be added to salads - go great with fish - the tea is pleasant and makes for a nicer headache relief than paracetamol. Herb infused vinegars are an age old way of extracting the health benefits from herbs, so this recipe might work on culinary as well as medicinal levels.

My Garden has been doing really well. On the left is the picture of how the garden looked in early March. The right picture was taken this morning. Coming together nicely

Oh and I mustn’t forget to point out the glorious bench on the right which the Light of My Life built just for moi, to make my herb garden extra special. All together now :”Awwwwwww”

Well I am off to infuse vinegar….

Stay Herbal!

Hello Herb Lovers,

Yep, another month has crept up on us and that means it’s time for another newsletter.

The Herbology Thymes - Mothers in May Edition

Subscribe for your free monthly copy to keep up with news, events and great recipes. Last month the focus was on herbal remedies to boost your immune system for the colder months. This month there are herbal Mother’s Day ideas, a look at some ancient autumn traditions and of course great herbal food recipes that make use of traditional harvest foods.

Stay Herbal!

Hello Herb Lovers,

On TV recently, the month of May was announced as being the month of colds, flu and various other viral nasties. Well, if that is the case then I have decided that April is the month to use our herbal knowledge to PREVENT all those bugs taking hold in the first place.

Herbology Thymes - Protect Your Health with Herbs Edition IS OUT NOW!

This month we talk about stress and how it can sap your immune system. Herbology answers your questions of how you can use herbs to boost your immune system. As usual I love using food as my favourite delivery system, so there are yummy recipes for you under Food as Medicine as well. Let’s keep those bugs at bay!

Every month the Herbology newsletter delivers informative articles, entertaining recipes, news and event information in a way that is relevant to contemporary life. It’s free too! You can subscribe from the sidebar on the right, easy!

Stay Herbal!

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!

Greetings Herb Lovers,

There have been many changes to Herb-blog-ogy and the main Herbology site.

Firstly, you will have noticed that there is now advertising on the right sidebar. There is also a separate SHOP page which contains links to Australian business I’d like readers to support. With any luck I have managed not to detract from the overall Herbology feel. The reason I have gone for commercial links is that Herbology is now FREE! YAY!!

Making Herbology free allows me to offer the type of herbal information - that I think everyone should know about - to a wider audience. You still need to register but for your trouble you’ll get a monthly newsletter packed with recipes!

New beginnings take brave souls to take the first step. So I would like to thank those brave souls who chose Herb-blog-ogy as the platform from which to send their messages.

A Big Thank you to:

Mathew Packer http://www.mathewpacker.com

Ken’s Trees http://kenstrees.com

Is a Man’s World http://isamansworld.com

Timothy Adams Designs http://timothyadams.blogspot.com

The Incurable Romantic http://incurable-romantic.com

My criteria for ad selection for this blog and the main Herbology site goes as follows:

1) Herbology related and Australian/NZ

2) Herbology related

3) Things I hope readers will like and Australian/NZ

4) Things I hope readers will like

5) Australian/NZ

Other changes to Herbology are a RECIPES ARCHIVE, new look article indexes and new look article pages.

Other changes to Herb-blog-ogy are new pages like About, Archives and Links. There arent too many links there yet but I am working on it. Oh and a darker background, you like?

There have been quite a few readers of the blog who have not been aware that the main site even existed, so this is my way of integrating all the different parts that make Herbology a whole.

I hope you all will like the changes, do feel free to critique or suggest anything you like.

Stay Herbal!

Happy Valentine’s Day herb lovers,

I realised today that I STILL havent written about our holiday. This post is no different it’s also not about the holiday

This is about the new herbal project. A herb garden!

Yes, yes, I know…..an endeavour that is fated to end in misery, given my history with growing anything.

But I have this dream you see. I would very much like an olde worlde garden, a physic garden of medieval times. The one that is my latest obsession will not be like that at all, but it will be start of my “I too can grow stuff” journey.

So I have joined the light of my life in the outdoors - in the daylight even!! He is building a new shed to make way for his sandpit project and I so far have denuded my patch of weeds and two large yucca trees (are they trees?). I have several blisters to prove that my toiling was of a serious nature. While busy with said toiling, it occurred to me that this is the first time that the two of us have worked together in the garden since Easter 2001. It also occurred to me that this might be the reason for the abysmal state of our garden.

As part of the project I am taking photos so I can do a before, during and after thing. Not sure if I’ll put it up here or on Herbology. Depends on how big this all gets.

Since it is Valentine’s Day I thought I would give a plug for the Herbology Thymes Love Herbs for Love edition. Valentine’s ideas for everyone - herbal gift ideas, recipes for a romantic 3 course dinner and much more Yes I know it’s a tad late to only start stuff now but you may not see your love till the weekend, so some of you will have time up your sleeve yet Plus the flowers are back to normal by then, pricewise that is.

Stay Herbal!

Me again herb lovers,

After the last post I tried to look up the origin of mint sauce. While I didnt actually get anywhere with that, I did get distracted with the fact that it is supposed to be thick and resemble thick cream in consistency. Uhm……mine didnt look like that. So I looked up olde worlde versions and sure enough they had 4 tablespoons of liquid instead of a cup. So I chopped up another handful of mint and added in to the (still) hot sauce.

Light of my life was suitably impressed YAY me!

Stay Herbal!

Hello herb lovers

Why is mint sauce called mint sauce? It’s not a sauce, it’s an infused vinegar.

I pondered this question as I looked for a suitable recipe online. When we were in the Uk I encountered the fascination of the English with this particular condiment. Since the light of my life is English and the products on the supermarket shelves are not fit for human consumption (apparently!) I decided to make some from the mint I bought at the markets on the weekend.

I found a recipe I liked but it called for malt vinegar. Now I can safely say I have never owned a bottle of malt vinegar in my life. At present I own white vinegar, apple cider vinegar, aged balsamic vinegar, cheap balsamic vinegar and even white balsamic vinegar, but nary a malt in sight. So I used apple cider - it’s very good for your health so maybe there is an added benefit for changing the recipe. Upon tasting it I made the first mentioned discovery - ok, it’s nice-ish but it’s just flavoured vinegar, so why all the fuss? and why would you put it on a perfectly roasted joint of lamb?

Feel free to educate me. Oh and I better warn you, DO NOT- under any circumstances- mention mint jelly! Apparently that substance is a hideous abberation to be avoided at all cost.

End of my ponderings

Stay Herbal!