Saturday, August 6, 2016

preserving herbs in salt, some beautiful cloudy days and more river dips!

last week, we had several cloudy and windy days but blue, blue skies and lots of sun in between.


the clouds here are just gorgeous!


all different kinds of clouds that hide the sun and then the sun pops back out.


beautiful!


our bro and sis G and C were down - they are getting ready to move here full time in september - woohoo! they gave us this shelving unit.



it's perfect for out on the porch to put gloves and shoes in.



ahhhh....river days. we love river days and beach days are coming soon. here is our beautiful river.


here is the stone boardwalk that jambaloney made for me to walk out into the river.


we had a super-filling, nutritious kidney bean salad with kalamata olives, green olives, pepperoncini, hearts of palm, artichokes, fresh-crushed garlic, ACV, EVOO and chopped up pickled onions. it was deelish. and filling.


we also had some cherries to snack on. when we are down at the river i like to make things that we can have one or two bites of and then put it back in the cooler, go for a dip, suntan a little, have another few bites, rinse and repeat.

kids - hang on to your seats. here's our first major haul of shelling peas to be frozen for the winter:


BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! it's not much, but we eat the peas right off the vine when they first come out and then every 2 days from now until the end of september we go out and pick whatever is ready, have some in a meal and then add the rest to the bag in the freezer. that way we get freshpicked peas all winter long. i don't blanch them, just rinse them and in the bag they go.

here's some more rose petals for teas and salve. and some borage flowers, evening of primrose, st. john's wart and chamomile also for teas and salve. if you pick only a few every single day and let the sun do the drying - you will have teas all winter.


for my healing salves, i like to pick fresh flowers and herbs.

here's a wonderful supper of roasted potatoes, carrots, turnip, garlic cloves and onions with hearts of palm and cherries on the side.


roasted veg are deeeeelishous! i cut up the chunks of veg and dump them in a big bowl with a lid. i add a ton of olive oil, turmeric, cumin and cayenne - yummeh!


and did you know that you can preserve whole herbs in sea salt and they will last at least 6 months in a dark area or up to a year in the fridge?

right now i have dill flowers coming in gangbusters. i have planted more dill, and left some of the dill flowers to go to seed for next year's seed....but what to do with these delicious flower heads when my cucumbers, peppers and zucchini are not yet ready for pickling?


you collect your dill heads (i love dill heads in pickles) and you clean them and dry them off. get a jar and line the bottom with coarse sea salt.


add your dill heads.


cover them with salt.


put them in a dark area until you are ready to use them. if more dill heads appear before you are ready to use them, add another layer of dill heads and cover them with salt. keep doing this until you fill a jar. and then 5 months from now when you get a gorgeous fresh-caught striped bass - swish the salt out of the way and your perfectly preserved dill heads will be as fresh as the day you caught them. you can do this with any herb. imagine making fresh basil in december from basil you grew and salt-bedded at the end of august. the basil leaves will come out as fresh as new.

just be sure to use SEA SALT and be sure to use enough of it! and guess what? that herbed salt is still useable for years to come!

here's some herbed lebanese hamburger rice - be heavy with the turmeric, cumin, cayenne, cardamon, cinnamon, ground coriander and crushed garlic.  

serve it with fresh-picked peas, grated purple haze carrots and make a dressing of EVOO, ACV, garlic, lemon, honey, sea salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin, cayenne, a gorgeous dollop of local honey and a pack ton of mint! and since the borage is now flowering add some beautiful and edible borage flowers. the man (jambaloney) has just finished buidling himself a proper workbench out of junk wood and is pretty proud of himself. he deserved a great supper after all of that work!

tomorrow it might be rainy according to one weather channel, or it might be sunny according to another, or it might be a mix of both, or it might snow - the only reliable method of predicting cape breton weather is using a weather stone. they last a life-time and they always tell you the weather. we sell framboise manor weather stones of different sizes between $20 and $50 dollars but you have to pay the shipping (it costs a lot to mail rocks!).  their basic proven meteorology method is thus - put the weather stone out in your yard where you can see it from a window. if you can see the rock and the sky is blue - it's a sunny day. if you can see the rock, but the rock is wet, it's raining. if you can see the rock but it has some white stuff on it - it's possible that it is snowing or hailing. if you can't see the rock because it's covered in white stuff - you're in a blizzard.

our email addresses are listed on the right side of our blog. if you would like one of these proven cape breton weather stones - just email us. we'll work out the shipping cost for you.

but regardless of what the weather is like tomorrow - i made some delicious lemon balm, mint and honey sun tea.


that's roughly about 2-3 cups of chopped herbs - 3/4 lemon balm and 1/4 mint. pick your leaves and rinse them and then just tear them up and bruise them by hand. a big honking dollop of honey, fill it with delicious berkey-filtered rainwater, leave it in the sun all day giving it a stir every now and again and then put it in the fridge for overnight. tomorrow, we'll be drinking this beautiful infusion all day.

teehee. and i can't help myself. i have to tell you! i made ice-cubes with borage flowers to go into each cup - that's pretty awesome no?

sending much love.

27 comments:

  1. YOU NEED STEAKS too. life in the north woods is good.

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    1. Rob, buddy - we eat tons of steak. and hamburger. and pork . and lamb. and chicken. and liver. and giblets. and fish. and life in the north is very good. sending much love to you, buddy! xoxox

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  2. dinner looks lush. I think I need a Cape Breton stone... Does it do wind speed? It is windy as heck here today

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    1. Sol - it would cost a fortune to send you a cape breton weather stone - but for you - i would take the cost on myself. and yes, if you put the rock near some grasses, it works as a wind stone. when you look out the window at the stone -if the grasses are blowing around the rock - it's windy. these cape breton weather stones are amazing at weather reading. bahahahah!

      and you know what? it's been strangely windy here for about a week now. what's up with that? xoxox

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  3. kym ber - Thanks for the offer of catnip seeds - I do have a few plants growing in our garden.

    Love the cupboard - would make a wonderful cupboard for preserves too.

    Also, ditto thanks for the salted herb idea - very clever :)

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    1. Dani - you are very welome. did you see in one of my previous posts that the bird's eye chili pepper plant that we planted from your seed last year and overwintered in the house is putting out a ton of peppers??? it's awesome!

      we needed something out on the porch for shoes and stuff and the cupboard just fit magically. we have plenty of room for all of our preps and preserves in our strange half-attic thing. and the salted herbs thing is something i learned from my mother years ago - it's tried and true! xoxoxo

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  4. Nice little stone pier Jamby made for you. He needs to extend it out some and add a bit to it though so you can lounge on it with the mermaid tail on in the sun.

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    1. hey buddy - he's gonna keep adding rocks until it goes out to about knee deep. and at that point - yes - i WILL be able to suntan on it with my tail. sending love bro. xoxo

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  5. Mmm mmm mmm - that bean salad looks good!

    I'm going to try your sea salt suggestion with some basil. Then I can make myself some sun-dried tomato basil hummus in the middle of winter! :D

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    1. oh Kelly - you'll be amazed if you do it with basil. put the washed and dried whole leaves on a nice layer of salt and you can overlap the leaves, then another layer of salt, another layer of leaves....continue...even start a new jar if you have a ton of basil coming in and yes - you'll be making sun dried tomato basil hummus in the middle of winter! it is such a treat! xoxox

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  6. Replies
    1. TB - you are so correct - salt is good for a bunh of stuff. that's why soldiers used to be paid in salt and that's why we have the expression "he's worth his weight in salt".

      wanna know something crazy??? i have researched how to harvest salt from the ocean and it's dead easy. one day i am going to try to harvest some for fun but in a grid-down - we will have salt! woohoo! xoxoxox

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  7. Basil in salt sounds like a plan. As for a weather rocks you're into a good business there!!! xxx

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    1. Kirsty - you'll be amazed at how fresh the basil will be when you dig it out of the salt. and we are just starting up the weather rock business - can you help spread the word - bahahahahah! xoxoxo

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  8. Wow, so many ideas! loving the herb salt and sun tea, definitely going to give these a try when we get settled in our new place :)

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    1. Tricky - the herbed salt and herb-packed salt really work. adding the herbed salt to meats and fish is just delicious! and then preserving herbs in salt for use throughout the winter is just fabulous! you can make sun tea out of any herb and each is delicious - sage, thyme, rosemary, oregano, etc - the thing is to find something that goes well with it. honey usually goes with all of it but sometimes a bit of lemon or mixing lemon balm with another herb works as well. i am looking forward to you getting settled in your new place. xoxoxox

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    2. Tricky - the herbed salt and herb-packed salt really work. adding the herbed salt to meats and fish is just delicious! and then preserving herbs in salt for use throughout the winter is just fabulous! you can make sun tea out of any herb and each is delicious - sage, thyme, rosemary, oregano, etc - the thing is to find something that goes well with it. honey usually goes with all of it but sometimes a bit of lemon or mixing lemon balm with another herb works as well. i am looking forward to you getting settled in your new place. xoxoxox

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    3. Tricky - how in the heck are you not in our bloglist????? that's being taken care of right now!

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  9. I sure wish you and J lived near us. You could teach M some of those things. The food always looks so good here.

    I thought there were going to be more pictures of that MerMaid that is rumored to haunt your river there.

    Hey, Tricky Wolf. Gorges is a good guy. He didn't mean to come across so heavy on your Tarot thing. ;-)

    Kymber, did you know Tricky Wolf is going to move to Spain with his family? Hell, if Clinton gets elected down here, maybe I will move over there too. You and J want to go?

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    1. Harry - back in a sec...i need to go add Tricky Wolf to our blogroll.

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    2. i'm back Harry and Tricky has been added to the blogroll....anyway - you know we'd love to have you nearer to us to share information and knowledge and you know the kids always have a safe place to go. the mermaid will be seen next time we go down to the beach. beach weather (for swimming) doesn't happen until august and we just have had a bunch of other stuff going on for a beach day - we've been doing lots of river days and cheating by taking the atv instead of walking down.

      but spain is not our cup of tea only because this island has such a low population, we live in the middle of nowhere...some people live in the country...we live in "the wilds". but otherwise we would love spain. i hope everything is going well with you my friend and i know that you are looking forward to M and the kids coming home. sending much love, as always. xoxoxo

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    3. Hey Kymber, you know if Trump gets elected down here (sorry Harry, ha) we'll be wanting to move up that way so get ready. Might be a large influx LOL. We'll bring two old cats and some great cooking abilities :-)

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    4. haha Harry I'm very thick skinned, religion is a passionate subject. Each to their own, people can believe what they wish as long as they don't come knock my door expecting me to believe it

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  10. I am always blown away by not only the pure deliciousness of your food, but by how beautiful you make it~xo

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  11. thank you Susan...you always leave the nicest comments! xoxoxo

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  12. I am SO getting on this sea salt thing! Awesome!!! Thank you sweet Kymber!

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  13. Kymber,

    I've been doing the sea salt thing for a while and just love doing it.

    Love to you and Jam

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