Category: herbs

Herbal Remedies For The Win: Cough Drop Edition

Happiness is a mouthful of homemade cough drops. Trust me.

Ok, so Covid is a thing that pretty much everyone has these days, present company included. In the early days, fever and achy pains kept me mostly horizontal, and herbal remedies in the form of tinctures were easiest to relieve Covid symptoms. But then I decided to give making my own cough drops a try, both for a little sugar and just to see what happens.

Spoiler alert: they aren’t easy, but I will absolutely make them again. They can be customized with herbal tinctures to treat the symptoms you are experiencing, and the herb blend I used – bee balm, lemon balm, and blue spruce – relieved my Covid symptoms naturally.

Herbal Cough Drops

Ingredients

1 cup sugar (see Recipe Notes)

½ cup honey

½ cup herbal tea (I used peppermint that I grew, brewed strong)

½ to ¾ teaspoon peppermint or lemon extract

1 to 2 droppers of herbal tincture (see Recipe Notes)

You’ll need: powdered sugar (or candy molds) and a candy thermometer

Method

You don’t need candy molds to make these. Place several inches of powder sugar into a 9” x 13” glass pan and use your fingertip to create indentations. These will hold the melted sugar mixture.

Place sugar, honey, and tea in a heavy, high-sided saucepan and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Over medium to medium-high heat, continue to cook until the sugar reaches 300 degrees. This can take 15 to 25 minutes, but keep an eye on it. Overflowed sugar is catastrophically messy, and burnt sugar is terrible.

Once your sugar has reached the temperature, stir in the extract and herbal tinctures of your choice, then transfer the mixture to a Pyrex measuring cup for easy pouring.

Pour sugar into the powdered sugar dents (or candy molds if using) and allow it to cool. Toss cough drops in powdered sugar and store them in an airtight container.

Sift the powdered sugar to remove stray candy bits and feel free to re-use.

Recipe Notes

*Honey can be a difficult flavor, and it burns easily. You can replace some or all of the honey with sugar, or you can use all honey. Just keep an eye on the mixture as it cooks — if it doesn’t reach 300 degrees before scorching, the cough drops will still be great (if a little chewy).

*Good herbal tinctures to use for cold and flu relief are:

  • Lemon balm
  • Bee balm
  • Mullein
  • Blue spruce
  • Yarrow
  • Nettle
  • Mint
  • Elderberry
  • Echinacea

Diente de Leon Oxymel, Or How To Preserve Spring

Dandelions and liquid in a Mason jar
Teeth of the lion, indeed.

Can we talk about sunshine in a jar?

How strange and unusual this spring has been, not only for the coronavirus, but also for the weather which is one day bluest skies and sunny sunshine and the next blowing snow flurries and plant pots off decks with gusty winds bringing cold down from the still-frozen north?

Can we talk about how this weather is both a mirror and a portent of my state of mind and its wild fluctuations? And how a vata-person such as myself is blown about in this swirling cacophony of informationweatherfearanxietyunknowing?

And what can I do with myself to feel grounded and connected and not so wildly out-of-control when bread baking is not an option (gluten-free bread baking being more frustration than reward)?

Simple.

Go directly to the earth.

Pick sunny dandelion flowers, the diente de leon.

Gently remove ants and other detritus, then pack into a clean, comforting, always-constant Mason jar.

Add about 1/3 cup of raw honey.

Add 2/3 cups apple cider vinegar (or to cover).

Label, shake gently, then tuck into a dark cabinet for six weeks, shaking every now and again.

Eventually, strain the flowers out and put into a dark glass bottle (I will have plenty of dark glass bottles when this is all over, seeing as how I am gulping down CBD by the barrel, just to remain steady).

This delicious, sour-sweet syrupy golden loveliness is an oxymel. The name comes from the Latin oxmeli, meaning “acid” and “honey.” Using dandelions, the benefits of an oxymel include helping with digestion and removing sluggishness from the body. Dandelion contains vitamins A and C, plus choline, which stimulates the liver, the yin organ of spring.

A sluggish liver is normal in spring, after cold, dry winter months, and a dandelion oxymel can help wake it up.

Add to tea, use in cocktails, or make a bitter greens spring salad (think arugula, sliced apples, and chickpeas, dressed with plenty of olive oil and dandelion oxymel to taste).

My new strategy in all weathers: proceed directly to the earth and use what is being offered.

What’s your strategy? How are you making it through?

Be well. Love each other. Wash your hands.

 

 

Taking The Sting Out Of Self-Quarantine: Stinging Nettle

Baby stinging nettle.

So I am definitely in self-quarantine due to possible exposure to COVID-19. It is only a slight possibility, but I feel like acting from an abundance of caution is the move here.

Side note: if you have ever wondered what the Baltimore accent sounds like, you could either come talk to my neighbor Clarence, who is Hampden born-and-raised, or you could simply say these two words out loud: corn teen. That’s what happens when you get the COVID, hon. You go inna corn teen.

As it was rainy and cold on Wednesday (the day of this missive), I asked KWeeks if he might like to meet me at Lake Roland for a no-contact social distancing hike in search of stinging nettle. We found some on our last walk there, but I was not prepared to harvest. Now, any excuse to walk around at a safe distance from all other bipeds was enticing.

Side note, part deux: There was only one empty car in the parking lot when I arrived, and although we did pass a total of four people on our way into the woods, I stepped way aside and held my breath. #SafetyFirst

If you are an herbalist or have even a passing fancy for plant medicine, you know that I should have started tincture making back in January, or last March when everything was popping out of the ground, well in advance of a time when I might actually need them. But today I am thinking of the Chinese proverb:

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

So consider my wildcrafted tincture product the second-best time to plant a tree.

Stinging nettle is a powerhouse of a wild plant. If you forage only one plant, let it be this one. Just be careful – wear gloves to protect yourself during harvest.

KWeeks and I walked in the damp, empty woods and talked about how awful everything is. I found massive patches of nettle, which is great because I will return to harvest more for nettle pesto the next time it rains.

Another bonus of rainy woods is the lack of danger noodles. KWeeks and I saw two on our last foray to Lake Roland, a big one and a smaller one, and I am not a fan. So cold and damp + no people + no snek = fear-free foraging.

When we parted ways, I returned home and cleaned and roughly chopped most of the stinging nettle, packing it in a pint jar before covering it with an assortment of whiskeys.

This lovely human I found on the YouTube validated my choice of lower-proof whiskey but did point out that it will take six to eight weeks to fully extract the medicine of the plant – double what my last post said.

It’s ok. I am a learning robot and can make changes accordingly.

I started to dry the remaining handful of stinging nettle dry in the oven on a rack and will let it finish in my studio. Stinging nettle is good for wheezing and lung issues – perfect timing for a pandemic. It’s good for tea, but you can also smoke it – an excellent choice for the wavering former smoker that is me.

In nine days, with no symptoms, I can hold the hand of KWeeks again and walk in the sunshine. Until then, it’s rainy walks for me only.

Rosemary Tincture

Small jar filled with chopped rosemary and whiskey sits on a wooden cutting board in front of a bottle of Maryland Club whiskey and a brick wall.
Rosemary is the most best, and you can, too!

Oh, nothing to see here. Just whipping up some rosemary tincture.

It’s easy: take lots of fresh rosemary (enough to pack the vessel of your choice – I used a squatty 1/2 pint jar), chop roughly, pack said vessel, and cover with booze that is at least 80 proof (I used 95 proof Maryland Club whiskey because YAY, MARYLAND, and also it’s what I had to use up).

Place cap on vessel and store in dark, quiet place. Intrude every other day or so to give it a shake.

Do this for two to four weeks. Then you could strain the tincture and repeat with more fresh rosemary for a sort-of-cheating double tincture, or you could strain and store forever in a dark glass bottle, preferably with a dropper.

So what the hell is rosemary tincture good for? Besides this delicious cocktail from the effervescent Jane Danger?

Uses up fresh rosemary that would otherwise go to waste, eases headache and indigestion, has antioxidant properties, enhances memory, may fight cancer, and is an antioxidant.

Your dose may vary. Some people say that for headache, take a full dropper (or a teaspoon), wait 30 minutes, and repeat if you still have a headache.

Yes, pregnant women can take this, but as always, use your brainpan and check with your doctor if you aren’t sure about taking herbal tinctures, especially the kind you made yourself.

I am looking forward to building more of an herbal medicine chest this year. Any suggestions?