Baking soda has lots of wonderful qualities that make it a household necessity!  Some of those qualities include:  mild, yet very effective abrasive cleaner without scratching or damaging the surface of what you’re cleaning, a natural neutralizer that keeps the pH as close to neutral as possible. 

So, some tips on how you can use a really easy, inexpensive solution for some everyday problems around the home. 

1. A Homemade Scouring Powder — Combine the following for a premixed cleaning powder:  1 cup baking soda, 1 cup borax, and 1 cup of salt.  Use this mixture as you would any commerical scouring powder.

2. Bee Stings and Bug Bites — Make a paste of baking soda and pat it on bee stings and other itchy insect bites for immediate relief.  Leave on to dry.  Repeate with new past as necessary.  (Stings can also be treated with meat tenderizer sprinkled on a wet cloth or gauze bandage.  Follow up with a baking soda soak.)  P.S.  Diluted vinegar is suggested for wasp stings. 

3. Fresh Smelling Ice Chests — Sprinkle baking soda in picnic coolers, ice chests and beverage coolers to keep them smelling fresh while being stored.  The soda is ready to be a cleaner when the next season arrives. 

For more great tips on uses for Baking Soda you can go to their website:  www.armhammer.com  .  They also have a newsletter you can sign up for and coupons you can print out. 

All of the information for this post was taken from the book:  Baking Soda: over 500 Fabulous, Fun & Frugal Uses You’ve Probably Never Thought Of by Vicki Lansky.  This book can be purchased through Amazon by clicking on the picture of the book. 

Crone Debi

 Combine dried Elder flowers, which are high in vitamin C, with dried yarrow and peppermint and you’ll have an old Gypsy fever tea ready for the depths of winter.  Or tincture the fresh flowers in 100 proof vodka as natural treatment for pneumonia, flu and bronchitis.  Later in the season the pristine white flower heads become umbels of deep purple berries that are loaded with vitamins A & C.  I make a decoction of the fresh berries, add honey to taste and some Elder flower tincture, as a preservative, for a tasty cough syrup which helps breakup and move mucus from the lungs.

 For a really special treat(ment) when you come down with a cold or flu this winter try this special cordial to cure what ails you.

 Elderberry Liqueur

4 cups fresh elderberries, picked over and washed

2 cups sugar

1 tsp lemon zest

2 Tbsp fresh-squeezed lemon juice

1 cup water

3 cups 100-proof vodka

Crush elderberries and sugar together in bowl. Let stand for about 1 hour. Add lemon zest and lemon juice. Transfer to clean 2-quart container and add water and vodka. Cover and let stand in a cool, dark place for 1 month, shaking occasionally.  Use a fine-mesh strainer to strain out solids.  Discard. Transfer liqueur to clean container. Cover and age for at least 1 month before serving.

And don’t forget to freeze some of Elders abundant bounty of berries to add to your muffins, oatmeal or granola.  There is nothing like the taste of summer to lift our spirits when the snow flies.

I am a knitter, a spinner, a weaver. I also crochet, needlepoint, quilt….on occasion, and under much protest, I have been know to sew by machine but my sewing machine doesn’t like me much so I almost never use it for anything (smile)! I do everything by hand.  Some of my current projects on the knitting needles are: a teal shawl, toy rabbits in several colors (which I hope to be able to sell), a camel colored shrug. I just finished several hats yesterday which I gave to my sister, niece and great-niece this afternoon.  They were a big hit.  The shrug is for my daughter-in-law, ostensibly for a Solstice gift but realistically I will probably give it to her before that.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn to knit, I will be posting some basic, beginning knit stitches in coming blogs, and possibly some easy patterns as well.  Talk to you again soon. Thanks for reading my fumblings (grin)!

Kat the Crone

Canning Food

For those of you out there worried about what’s in the foods you eat, it’s not difficult to make and preserve your own.  Some things may be a little more difficult and time consuming, but there are a lot of things that are really easy to do, like jams, jellies, relishes and pickles.  (And you can pickle just about any fruit or vegetable.  My grandmother did, which is where I learned most of what I know about food preservation.)

Now I know a lot of people who are scared about canning their own food, or think it’s too complicated.  Let me tell you a secret… it’s not.  There are just a few tools you need to make it easy.  One is a small canner.  If you can’t find one, use a large stock pot with a round cake rack in the bottom.  The others are just basic kitchen tools that not everyone would have: a wide mouth canning funnel and a set of jar tongs.  You can find a Canning Utensil Kit with all the special tools you will need for under $10.

Those you can find at most places specializing in cooking ware and kitchen goodies.  Or find a local, old time hardware store.  If they carry canning jars, most likely they will have all three items.  If you can’t find them locally, you can always search the internet for Ball Canning Jars, and that will lead you to their home website, where they can be purchased.

The next thing you’ll need will be the canning jars themselves.  What size you need depends on the quantity you use at one time, and the quantity the recipe makes.  They come in cases of 12, and can vary in volume from 4 ounces up to a quart, and can be decorative or not, wide mouth or not.  It’s all a matter of personal preferences.

Assortment of jar sizes

Before you use any of them, make sure to wash the jars and lids in soapy water, rinse well, and air dry.  And before you start any recipe, put the jars in a pot of water, bring them to a boil for 5 minutes, then turn the pot down to a simmer.  Put the lids (not the rings) in a small pot and just bring to a simmer.  Put water in the canner enough to cover the size jars you’re using put a lid on it and bring it to a boil.  (Once it has, turn the heat down to the point that it stays just at a boil and leave it.)

Blackberries

Now that we’ve done all that, let’s start off with something simple and seasonal – Blackberry Jam.  Here’s what you need in the way of ingredients: 4 cups of blackberries and 4 cups of sugar.  That’s it.

Preheat the oven to 250°(F).  Put the sugar in a pan, and put it in the oven.  (The warmed sugar will dissolve easier in the jam.)

Put the blackberries in a pot,  start them out on a medium-low heat and crushing them until they start to release juices, then turn them up to a boil.  Boil for 5 minutes.  Add the warmed sugar, stir well to dissolve, and return to a boil for 5 more minutes, stirring frequently so the jam doesn’t scorch or stick to the bottom of the pot.

Check the jam to see if it has jelled.  The easiest way is to use a clean, cold spoon, pull up a spoonful of jam and turn it sideways to let it pour back into the pot.  Watch the spoon:  if your jam has jelled, the drops will thicken on the spoon before running together to fall back in the pot, and some of the jam will cling in a thin sheet to the spoon.

When the mixture first boils, drops are light and syrupy.

As mixture continues to boil, drops become heavier and drop off the spoon two at a time.

When two drops form together and "sheet" off the spoon, the gelling point has been reached.

The other way is to put a little on a small plate that you’ve had chilling in the freezer, then tilt the plate about 45 degrees.  If it stays in a mass on the plate, it’s done.

Headspace

Once you’ve reached the gel point, remove your jars from the water and stand them up on a towel.  Pour or ladle the jam into the jars, leaving a space at the top of about 1/4 inch.  (This is called the headspace.  You need the small amount of air at the top of the jars for them to seal properly)  If any jam spills on the lip of the jar, wipe it off with a damp cloth.  Using a pair of tongs, put a lid on each jar, then put on the rings, using only your fingertips to tighten.  (You want the jars covered, but not sealed so tightly that no air can escape when you put them in the canner)

Lower the jars into your canner, put the lid on, turn the heat back up, and, once it comes back to a full boil, boil for 5 minutes.  Turn off the heat, take out the jars with your canning tongs, put them on a rack  or towel on the counter, and leave them alone.

You should hear the lids pop after a short amount of time.  If one of them for some reason doesn’t seal after an overnight, remove the lid, wipe the rim of the jar and replace the lid with another clean, boiled lid, reseal and process again as before.  This can be done anytime in the first 24 hours.  After that, put it in the refrigerator to use now.

I can hear you now, saying “That’s too complicated!”  It’s not.  It’s the setup that takes time, not the making and canning of the jam.

It’s just 4 steps.

Blackberry Jam

Blackberry Jam

1 – Boil jars, lids and canning pot water.

2 – Make and jell test the jam.

3 – Fill the jars.

4 – Put them in the water bath, boil, remove.

Done!  And you’ve made your own jam.

Mr Green Jeans

Don't Eat That!

UMMM, EXCUSE ME!!!    Being focused on eating healthy, alive food means that I am neurotic!!  This must be a joke, the best ever OXYMORONIC TERM.   Sadly, however, it’s not.  This is floating around the internet, has a couple official medical studies, and got published in Psychology Today.  I’m sorry, as it is described on Wikipedia, I just can’t see how focusing on healthy food could result in malnutrition…  I think that the causative factor [focusing on healthy food] does not actually result in the end result [malnutrition].  I think this must be more on the Anorexia end of the spectrum, with the controlling piece being the focusing on clean foods, as a means of controlling what is consumed.  I’m not sure that makes sense, it sounded better in my head than it reads here…  lol, but hopefully you get the idea.

Orthorexia nervosa From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthorexia_nervosa

Orthorexia, or orthorexia nervosa is a term coined by Steven Bratman, a Colorado MD, to denote an eating disorder characterized by excessive focus on eating healthy foods. Orthorexia is not recognized as a mental disorder in any of the medical manuals, such as the ICD-10^[1] or the DSM-IV,^[2] neither is it part of the proposed revision of this manual, the DSM-5.^[3]
Steven Bratman claims that in rare cases, this focus may turn into a fixation so extreme that it can lead to severe malnutrition or even death.^[4][5]

Bratman coined the term in 1997 from the Greek orthos, “correct or right”, and orexis for “appetite”.^[6] Literally “correct appetite”, the word is modeled on anorexia, “without appetite”, as used in definition of the condition anorexia nervosa. Bratman describes orthorexia as an unhealthy obsession (as in obsessive-compulsive disorder) with what the sufferer considers to be healthy eating. The subject may avoid certain foods, such as those containing fats, preservatives, animal products, or other ingredients considered by the subject to be unhealthy; if the dietary restrictions are too severe or improperly managed, malnutrition can result.

Symptoms of orthorexia nervosa may include obsession with healthy eating, and emaciation among other things. Orthorexic subjects typically have specific feelings towards different types of food. They tend not to eat out as much because they do not trust the preparation of foods other than what they have prepared.^{[citation needed]} The obsession for healthy foods could come from a number of sources such as family habits, society trends, economic problems, recent illness, or even just hearing something negative about a food type or group, which then leads them to ultimately eliminate the food or foods from their diet.^[21] According to the abstract of a 2004 study quoted on PubMed, a service of the National Institutes of Health, “The analysis of the physiological characteristics, the social-cultural and the psychological behaviour that characterises subjects suffering from ON shows a higher prevalence in men and in those with a lower level of education.”^[16]

This is just TOO MUCH!!!

The Crone

p.s.  here is another one for the books,

Enough with drinking water