Category: Recipes

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Lavender Butterfly Peaflower Custard

Lavender Butterfly Peaflower Custard. Lavender & Butterfly Peaflower are both calming herbs that clear the mind. Lavendula angustifolia is “the broom of the brain” as she clears out mental clutter, and is a warming relaxing nervine. And Butterfly Peaflower, Clitoria ternata, also has many safe traditional uses as food & medicine in SE Asia. Also this flower turns food beautiful colors from blues to pinks & purples. I was gifted these flowers by a Vietnamese friend. But I noticed they also sell these flowers in Ruohonjuuri in Helsinki. The scent taste & effect of this custard is absolutely divine. Recipe adapted from one of my favorite herb books Alchemy of Herbs by Rosalee De Laforet. Recipe ingredients: 2 cups whole milk (I substituted 1 cup coconut milk with 1 cup heavy coconut cream.) 1 TBSP dried lavender flowers, 4 eggs, 1/3 cup honey, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla bean powder, 1 tsp organic orange extract. Plus I added 1/2 tsp butterfly pea flower powder. Directions: add lavender flowers to milk and simmer medium low heat for 10 minutes until milk starts to bubble. Turn off heat and let infuse for 10 minutes. Strain and add butterfly pea flower powder. Stir until dissolved. Let milk cool for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 F (176 C). Mix all other ingredients together. Slowly add milk to ingredients, stirring constantly. Fill dish with custard, and place this dish inside of another dish filled with hot water. Make sure that there is enough hot water that the hot water reaches halfway up the side of the custard dish. Place both dishes together in the oven and bake for 30 minutes. The custard is done when it has a slight jiggle and the top shows some hints of darkness. Remove from oven. Let cool and then store in refrigerator overnight. Serve cold. Enjoy!

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Fire Cider

Fire Cider. My first year in Finland I had the flu 3 times! But this 2nd year I haven’t gotten sick at all, and I think its mostly because I stopped eating dairy during cold months and I drink shots of Fire Cider if I start feeling cold. If you’ve never made Fire Cider, try it, its delicious! Its warming to the digestive system and stimulates your immune system by making you sweat. This is great for early stages of cold trying to enter your body. When digestion is weak & cold your body produces Dampness which can lead to mucous and runny nose. Dairy is cold and damp, so further weakens a weak digestive fire. This is why avoiding dairy and drinking Fire Cider helps someone like me (tendency to feel cold with weak digestion) during cold months. If you are someone who has a hot firey constitution then Fire Cider might be too warming for you. There are many variations on recipes but here is the recipe I use: 1/2 cup fresh ginger root, 1/2 cup fresh horseradish, 1 onion, 12 garlic cloves, 1 fresh lemon juiced, 2 TBSP dried rosemary, 1 TBSP tumeric powder, apple cider vinegar. Let sit one month in refrigerator and shake daily. Strain and add honey to taste. YUM.

Ingredients for Fire Cider
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Burdock Leaf Poultice

Wooly Burdock/ Burdock, Seittitakiainen/ Isotakiainen (Finnish), Arctium tomentosun/Arctium lappa (Latin), Gobo (Japanese), Niu Bang Zi (Chinese for burdock seed) … Every part of this plant is medicinal. I first discovered Gobo at age 19 when I lived in Japan and a sweet japanese woman named Yuko taught me to cook the Gobo root with carrots, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar and black sesame seeds.This is a traditional Japanese dish called Kinpira. Later while studying herbs I learned that the root contains alot of inulin which feeds the good bacteria in our intestines. I also learned that the root is very useful to treat chronic skin problems and helps the kidneys, liver and gallbladder remove waste from the body. The root tastes somewhat sweet and is energetically cooling. And then when studying Chinese Medicine I learned that the fruit (Niu Bang Zi) is clears heat toxins and disperses heat from the exterior surface of the body and is so useful for treating painful sore inflamed throat. The cold slippery quality of the fruit also treats constipation that is due to heat accumulating in the intestines. I can testify that this plants works very well when used in these ways! Recently I have been inspired to work with burdock leaves as a poultice for pain. I read of this practice from herbslist Susun Weed. You place fresh burdock leaves in vinegar. I roll the leaves up so they fit better into the jar. Fill the jar with vinegar. To use the leaves as a poultice you remove a leaf from the jar and heat it up in the oven. When nice and warm you apply it to the area of the body where there is pain. Back pain, knee pain, elbow pain, joint pain. Leave on until it cools to room temperature and then apply another warm leaf. Do this for at least 20-30 minutes. You can do this a few times a day for several days. After using the poultice you can also apply an herbal pain relieving salve. Since burdock grows abundantly where people live, its definitely worth learning more about this amazing plant!

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Finnish Forest Soda

Finnish Forest Soda fermenting natural carbonated bubbles. Made with herbs picked while hiking in the forest, honey & yeast. So easy and you can make this too for a taste of Your Local Forest. This soda has: Spruce, Pine, Lingonberry, St Joans Wort, Heather, Blueberry leaf, Wood Sorrel, Labrador tea, Yarrow. Tastes like finnish forest. Recipe from Pascal Baudar’s book The Wildcrafting Brewer. Basically you just pick your herbs, clean your jar, utensils & hands. Place herbs in jar, add spring water, honey, yeast, mix. I used 79 g honey per L water. Add 1/2 ml yeast per L. Place paper towel on top to keep bugs out & stir 4 times a day with clean spoon. Wait 1 day for fermentation bubbles to appear. Strain into bottle, seal it, let sit 1 more day to ferment even more bubbles. Then refrigerate. Drink within a few days. So Delicious!! Also contains naturally fermented bacteria that are beneficial to intestines plus all the healing properties of the herbs. And how sweet to taste your own local forest plants while they are in season, a reminder of the time you were there walking through the forest….

Finnish forest Soda
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Rosebay Willowherb Rose Honey Drink

Rosebay Willowherb Rose Honey Drink, recipe adapted from Helsinki Wildfoods … I like this because its a Pink Drink and therefore it delights the little kid in me. Pour 1 liter boiling water over 1/2 liter Rosebay Willowherb. Add 1 TBSP fresh lime or lemon juice. Let sit for a few hours (I let mine sit overnight in refrigerator). Strain. Add sweetener. I added rose-infused honey as the sweetener. Rose-infused honey is made by filling a clean jar with fresh wild rose petals then covering in honey. The flavor of roses infuses into the honey and the taste is seriously divine. The honey is ready after just a few days of infusing but you can let them infuse for months if you want. You can strain the honey or leave the petals in as they are edible. Also, theres lots of critters living on the herbs so after harvesting its good to spread them outside in the shade so they can walk away..

Rosebay Willowherb
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Spruce Ground Ivy Mint Pastilles

Spruce, Ground Ivy, Mint pastilles. These pastilles melt in your mouth and open up clogged sinuses and soothe sore throat. They are made with spruce infused honey, ground ivy, peppermint, thyme and marshmallow root. Just grind the dried herbs into a fine powder, mix with spruce infused honey, form into balls and then coat with powdered mint. I put them into the refrigerator to ‘set’ and become firm. But they do not need to be kept refrigerated. Oh! And they are also a tastey breath-mint or sugar free candy. They store well in the freezer so you can make a bunch and freeze them for later. … Also! The botanical name of the Ground Ivy is Glechoma hederacea. Its Not the regular creeping ivy. And you can omit Ground Ivy from this recipe if you cant find it. Feel free to experiment with other culinary herbs for different flavors such as Rosemary or Fennel Seeds or Cardamom. Each herb has its own unique properties but the common culinary herbs in the Mint Family are all safe to experiment with. Enjoy!

Spruce Ground Ivy Mint Pastilles
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Lilac Flower Lotion

Hand-made lilac flower lotion. You can do this, just 3 simple ingredients: oil infused with lilac flowers, water, bees wax. I used lilac flowers that grew in my yard but you can use any flower or herb that you like to infuse in oil. I used rose water, but you can use any floral water hydrosol that you like or simply use plain water. This lotion is silky smooth and feels wonderful on your skin. Recipe: clean all utensils & equipment that you will use. Measure 3/4 cup flower infused oil, 1 cup floral water hydrosol or plain water, 1/2 ounce beeswax. Slowly melt beeswax into oil in a double boiler. Once the wax is melted, set aside for a few minutes until a hard ring of wax starts to form around the edge. Pour water into a blender and turn on high speed. Slowly add the oil to the blending water. This forms a lotion. Do not over-blend. Put in a clean jar and keep refrigerated. This recipe does not have any preservatives so it must be kept refrigerated. You can always scoop some lotion out into a small bowl kept at room temperature to use that day, if you dont like the feeling of cool lotion on your skin. My lotions have kept perfectly in the refrigerator for up to a year. Enjoy!

Lilac Flower Lotion
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Wild Seeds & Wild Weeds Condiments

I love the idea of imparting the flavor of your local terrain into your meals. These condiments are so simple & easy to make. The ‘hard’ part is going outside to pick weeds. But then, thats the FUN part! Wild Seeds condiment… made from plantain seeds, yellow dock seeds, nettle seeds & flax seeds. The seeds were gathered from nearby fields & forests, except flax seeds which came from the grocery store. The yellow dock & nettle seeds were first sifted thru a sieve and then dry roasted with the plantain seeds. It smells like popcorn when roasting in the pan. Then ground with morter & pestle, & mixed with sea salt. The taste is yummy like earthy popcorn. This recipe was inspired by one of my herb teachers, Susun Weed. With Wild Weeds Condiment I just gather the abundant springtime weeds such as pineapple weed, goatweed, nettle, yarrow, and spruce sprouts. I dry the herbs thoroughly then grind them into a fine powder and mix half salt with half powdered herbs. The Wild Weeds Condiment is inspired by my friend Riitamaija who makes delicious herbal salts. I use these condiments on literally everything I cook on the stove. They impart a foresty flavor and are full of trace nutrients. They also make great gifts!

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Thyme & Pine Steams

Thyme steams are powerful medicine. Antimicrobial to the respiratory tract and clears mucous out of the sinuses. Just boil water in a pot, add a handful of thyme. Take off stove, put your face over the pot & put a towel over your head to catch all the steam. Breath deeply 10-15 minutes. Your sinuses will drain and you will feel so much better afterwards! Good as preventative medicine or if you have a runny nose. You can add other herbs too such as rosemary, lavender, mint, ground ivy, pine. After the steam I simmer the herbs on low to disenfect the air in the house. Smells clean & fresh. This is grocery store backyard medicine that most of us have access to! (To be safe, pregnant women should avoid strong volatile oils in thyme steams.)

Pine needles
Place a towel over your head to capture the steam rising from the pot.
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Thyme Aronia Berry Oxymel

Thyme Aronia Berry Oxymel.. Oxymels have been used as far back as ancient Greece for the treatment of respiratory symptoms such as congested coughs. Oxymels combine herbs, honey & vinegar, they taste delicious & can be mixed with water to drink or added to veggies for flavor. Thyme is warm & drying which helps drive out cold damp mucous in the sinuses & lungs. Thyme is also antitussive (helps stop cough spasms), antibacterial & antifungal. Honey is moistening & antimicrobial. And you can use any berry, they are full of vitamins & nutrients and burst with flavor. You will love the way this tastes, heres the recipe: 1 cup berries mashed, 1/4 cup dried thyme, 1 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2-3/4 cup honey. Keep in fridge. Shake daily. Ready after 2 weeks. Strain into a bottle. Enjoy! *I found this recipe years ago on the internet and I wish I could credit the herbalist who originally posted this recipe but I cannot find the recipe again. But whoever that great herbalist woman is, Thank You so much for sharing! Because this recipe is one of my absolute favorites. I have always got a bottle of this oxymel in my refrigerator!

Thyme Aronia Berry Oxymel