Staying Healthy This Season

1

I woke up this morning to 12 degrees of coldness outside, but to 60+ degrees of warmth inside, thanks to our lovely woodstove insert.  Such happiness, to not have to rely on 60 year old electric ceiling heat to try to keep up when outdoor temperatures are frigid.

But enough on that; that's not why I'm writing today.  I'm writing because of the excess of colds and flus that accompany winter.  I work in a school, with students aged 10-15 -- I am surrounded all day every day by a variety of bacteria and viruses and other bugs -- and here are my tips to staying mostly and relatively healthy.

1. Rest & relax
2. Hydrate
3. Get outside
4. Eat lots of vegetables (and fruits)
5. Take an elderberry tincture
6. Drink kefir
7. Find reasons to be happy


Rest & Relax
Winter is a stressful time, especially for northern folks.  The days are short and dark and cold, many layers are required to simply go outdoors.  A lot of jobs become more stressful in the late-fall, early-winter months, and holidays cause their own brand of anxiety.  It's an exhausting time.  In eras past, this time of year was one for sleeping and resting and finding time to *enjoy* the company of others.  Follow the lead of those long past and create regular downtime for yourself.  You'll be glad you did.  (Our pets are also master-relaxers, so if you don't believe in learning from history, you can learn from them.)

Hydrate
The body needs water to work, and the dry cold weather and the dry pumped heat of winter wreak havoc on physical body systems.  Hair dries, skin cracks, and the internal systems aren't immune either.  Drink plenty of water (add a piece of citrus to your water to improve taste and add natural electrolytes) and get a humidifier -- fight off those dehydration headaches and sinus issues and the exhaustion that comes with a body that doesn't have enough water.  Humidifying can also help with sleep, which is also part of that "resting and relaxing" bit above.

Get Outside
I'm not much of a winter person (neither are my chickens), and I quite frankly hate being cold.  But I find that I have been getting sick less often since we got a dog and I have to take the dog out, rain or shine or snow or wind.  I get at least 30 minutes of semi-active outdoor time every day with our dog, and I'm pretty sure that has boosted my immune system.
Getting outside will also help you get more sunlight into your eyes, which can help counter the "winter blues."

Eat Lots of Vegetables (and Fruits)
It's old news, if it's news at all, that vegetables and fruits are healthy for you.  They are full of vitamins and minerals and hydration (if fresh) -- all things that can help ward of colds and flus.  Plus, eating more simply helps your body have energy.  Fruits and vegetables make up close to 50% of the daily recommended food intake (if you take advice from MyPlate and others).
There are many ways to eat vegetables and fruits -- fresh, frozen, dried, smashed, steamed, cooked in soup, pickled -- just make sure they aren't over-processed, because then they loose a lot of their potency.  (We love salt-pickled veggies and a potato-cauliflower-spinach smash and fruit-veggie-kefir smoothies.)

Take an Elderberry Tincture
A couple of years ago, I took an online herbalism course.  I learned a lot about natural remedies to common problems, and elderberry was something that I learned could improve the immune system.  I started making (and taking) an elderberry tincture, and it has been great!  My body has more capability to ward those nasty bugs.  (My tincture is filtered water, vegetable glycerin, elderberry, echinacea, and apple cider vinegar.)

Drink Kefir
Kefir is one of those special things that not everyone takes to right away -- it's a kind of a sour, liquidy yogurt.  But, it's full of probiotics and bacteria that are good for your insides -- and a healthy gut helps make for a healthy body. 
Using kefir for smoothies by adding fruit and vegetables (banana, frozen mango, spinach for example) is a delicious way to drink kefir and get the extra fruits and vegetables recommended above.


Find Reasons to be Happy
The mind affects the body and vice versa -- a whole person is an amalgamation of complex systems that work together.  Finding something to be happy about or thankful for on a cold, dark, dreary winter day positively affects those systems -- it's like taking a different kind of vitamin!

One last tip:
Did you catch that cold already?...  Mince and crush some garlic, mix with honey, and take in tiny portions throughout the day.  The duration and symptoms of your cold should decrease.

Happy health!

Read More »

Relishing the Relish

0

Just in time for the holiday season, I present one of my favourite holiday foods -- cranberry relish!  I know cranberry relish doesn't typically hit the top ten ten list of holiday treats, but it's a big deal at my house, and I try to keep a bowl of it around from mid-November through the end of December.

I have fond memories of Thanksgiving in my youth.  It was always a big family affair with many relatives and often friends, too.  My grandmother made the most delicious, melt-in-your-mouth rolls and my grandfather made cranberry relish (they also made fabulous stuffing).  I started making cranberry relish on my own when I moved far from family after grad school and needed some traditions to help me feel connected and grounded.  I didn't have a recipe, so I recreated it from childhood memory.  It has been a personal favourite ever since, giving me an easy, quick, healthy food tradition that adds brilliant colour to the dinner table and reminds me of happy childhood holidays.


--------------------------------------------------------

Ingredients:
1 bag cranberries
1 apple (sweet)
1 orange
1 c. frozen raspberries
3/8 c. sugar (more or less to taste)

Instructions:
Total time: ~30 minutes
Clean the fruits -- rinse, wash, etcetera.  Pour 4/5 of the cranberries into a food processor and chop into pieces; dump into a large bowl.  Core and chunk the apple; put the pieces in the food processor and chop.  Save out 1/5 and pour the rest in with the cranberries.  Do the same with the orange (rind and all, though you can remove the white strings).  Add most of the raspberries in with the raw fruit.  Mix in approximately 1/4 c. sugar, stir, and let sit.

Put about 1/2 inch of water in a small pot, add the saved-out fruit and 1/8 c. sugar.  Heat over medium until the fruit comes to a boil and the cranberries start popping.  Turn the heat down and allow to simmer until it turns into a lovely, red, sweet sauce, slightly thickened.

Pour the sauce over the raw fruit and stir well.  Eat immediately or let sit.  It ages very well.

Read More »

Small-Portions Harvests

0

For a variety of reasons, our garden this year (as in many other years) yields "small-portion harvests" -- just enough during any given week to treat us to home-grown fruits and vegetables that subsidize the rest of our meals, but not enough to store away and preserve.  Every year I work towards a more productive harvest, and each year it does get a little bit better (except maybe this year -- drought, ya know).  Nevertheless, despite the frustrations, I am filled with gratitude and wonder at each small-portions harvest that comes from our land.

Isn't it beautiful?  Colours, textures, scents, and flavours....
Four kinds of tomatoes, 2 kinds of potatoes, husk/ground cherries, buttercup squash, and the inevitable egg (though the hens are starting to molt and egg production is decreasing).  Not shown are the Astrakom eggplant and the German Englischer custard squash (which have been suffering mold problems) that we already ate this week.

Many more tomatoes to ripen, more squash and eggplant, and at least 2-3 more buttercup squash on the volunteer vine that this one came off of.  Our best produce is grown from the compost pile.  If only my whole garden were as rich as our compost pile....

(I am considering for next year limiting the scope of my garden, so I can spend more time and have more earth to amending and enrich.  And if there's little planted, I can let the chickens in to help me out with that -- they would love that!)

Read More »

Post-vacation Garden

0

After being gone for ten days, I returned to a garden overcome with weeds (crabgrass, going to seed!).  So today, despite the withering heat and humidity, I weeded.  And I weeded some more.  Then I took a little time to admire the actual plants in the garden -- the squash plant that ate Hadley, a multitude of green tomatoes in the tomato jungle, a couple of tiny little figs, and an eggplant.  I also did a little potato digging -- my first potato harvest!
We finally got a little rain,and August is good.  Now I wait for the ripening to begin.

 

 

Read More »

The Bramble Ramble

0

 

Our house is bordered on one side by an overgrowth of bushes and trees and brush, some of it planted there when the house was built all those decades ago and allowed to metastasize, and some of it random growth.  Among that random growth (some would call it weeds) is a stretch of wild black raspberries which this year decided to produce a beautiful quantity of fruit.

 

Unfortunately, the recent near-drought has turned most of those juicy berries into sweet, crunchy seedpods.  However, because of all those beautiful berries and lush greenery, I was inspired to create a "bramble ramble" -- to clear out some of the over- and under-growth and increase the swath of bramble berry bushes. 

So I cleared growth from around the wild patch.  I traded with a neighbour some fresh eggs for raspberry canes.  I cleared more brush, dug out even more burning bushes, trimmed back trees, and created space.  Then I planted the bartered-for canes (along with a little compost from the chicken run).  I watered.  I waited.  I watered some more.

The canes that were alive when I planted them are thriving -- one is even producing more canes already!  I look forward to tearing out some more burning bush (they are seriously taking over our property) and adding more raspberries to the "ramble."  I'm even considering transplanting the gooseberries to this space next year, but I haven't yet decided about that.

Now I wait with patience for those delicious berries next year, and hope I get to them before the birds!

Read More »

Preserve a Little Summer : Peach Butter

0

Two words: Peach Butter
Peaches + Sugar + Lemon = Summer in a jar = sweet warm sunshine for the middle of winter

Our peach tree did absolutely nothing this year, and by nothing I mean it didn't even blossom.  Heartbreaking -- I was very much looking forward to my first great crop of peaches.  However, peaches in other parts of the country must be doing well, because our local market had boxes and boxes of peaches at very lovely price.  So I got some.

And I set off to make peach butter.  A quick blanch of the peaches in boiling water helps the peels come off, and I peeled, pitted, and chopped about 4+ pounds (I don't have a kitchen scale, so weight measurements are tricky), and set them in a pot to cook down to softness.  I also added the zest and juice of a lemon to both balance the flavour and add acid for canning.

When the peaches were soft, I spooned them into the blender to break down even further, to a smooth, spreadable consistency.  Four blenderfuls later, I had about 7.5 cups of peach puree, to which I added sugar (about 3.5 cups), and put it back on the stove to cook down and thicken up.

Delicious.

The jars had been preparing, so I spooned peach/lemon/sugar mixture into hot jars and put them in the hot water canner to process for about 15 minutes.

When they were done, I had five beautiful half pints and 4 quarter pints ("jelly-sized) of peach butter -- perfect for reminding me in January and February that summer is not a figment of my imagination -- and great for gifts, too!

 

You can find great peach butter recipes in these two books -- one for regular peach butter (like you see here) and one for roasted peach butter, which is also delicious, but takes more peaches (I made some of that, too).

Recipe
Ingredients
Peaches: peeled, pitted, chopped
Lemon: juice & zest (one lemon for 7-8 cups of puree)
Sugar: about 1/2 cup for each cup of pureed peach

Directions
Cook the chopped peaches (add a little water to the bottom of the pot) until they are soft and smashable.  Spoon peaches into blender or food processor in small batches.  Puree/blend until smooth and spreadable but not liquid.  Pour peaches into clean pot and add in lemon and sugar; stir in until sugar is dissolved.  Heat mixture at medium heat until it reaches a jam-like density*.
Meanwhile, prepare your jars.  Clean and heat lids, rings, and jars -- sizes and amount vary by amount of peach butter.
When the peach butter has reached the right consistency, pour into jars.  Wipe off the mouths of the jars and top with lids and rings.  Process in hot water canner for 15 minutes for half-pint jars.

If you have a little extra that doesn't fit in a jar, there's no harm in just sticking it in the fridge to eat in the summer!

*To test for jam and fruit butter readiness, drop a small, small spoonful onto a chilled plate.  If it spreads and/or separates, it's not ready yet.  If it holds its shape like a blob of jam, it's good to go.

Read More »