Hope you enjoy reading about what's happening at Garden Fairy's Cafe: foraging, organic gardening, making herbal infusions and tinctures, wholesome cooking, and more.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Red clover infusion

Chilled red clover infusion and dried blossoms
Recently good friends of mine asked me to house-sit and take care of the animals and plants on their farm for a week. Their property was abundant with edible and/or medicinal wild plants (such as red clover, yellow dock, lamb's quarters, sheep sorrel, cleavers, pepperweed, and mullein), and I enjoyed harvesting them to make dried herbs, tinctures, and vinegars. I picked and dried a lot of red clover blossoms for infusion. It has mildly earthy, slightly sweet and astringent flavors, which is palatable as hot or cold. 

Hot red clover infusion with a slice of lemon and honey
Red clover is highly nutritious and medicinal, containing a lot of calcium along with other minerals for healthy bones and teeth for everyone as well as isoflavones (dietary estrogens) for healthy breasts for women and healthy prostate for men. And you can get it for free every spring if you know where it voluntarily grows without being sprayed with pesticides or being polluted by gas fumes on the roadside. 

Here is a great video of Susan Weed demonstrating how to make red clover infusion and explaining its nutritional and medicinal properties. 

Monday, May 21, 2012

Lavender

Lavender (Photo by bodhilens)
This is the spring 2012 harvest of lavender blossoms. The lavender bush in our backyard grew from seeds and is now 4 or 5 years old. It provides me enough leaves and flowers to make tea (very fragrant), herbes de provence (great for pizza crust), and shortbread (the best) for two throughout a year.