Author Archive: My Kitchen Wand

Having fresh growing herbs that are easy to reach is a bonus. Hiking out to the back 40 in the middle of preparing a meal is not going to happen regularly. You are more likely to use your herbs when they are easily reachable. Remembering to use them is the important part. They are full […]

Cream puffs, profiteroles, buns or “windbags” as they are known in Germany, are an alternative form of “pastry”, known as choux pastry. “Choux” is French for cabbage, which is what the individual cream puffs were said to look like once baked. The first record of this style of pastry dates back to the 13th century […]

With the abundance of roses this week, rosewater seemed like another wonderful way to keep the memories alive as the months move on. Gather rose petals. They can be a variety of colours but the petals are best when they are herbicide/pesticide free and intoxicatingly aromatic. Gently and thankfully separate the petals and place on […]

I have been really wanting to make some floral petal infused honey for a while now and John Gallagher of Learning Herbs shared a post the other day that pushed the want over the edge especially when combined with that fact that a friend of mine was going away for a couple of weeks and […]

Probably the most common way to preserve herbs is to dry them. It is easy, inexpensive and retains a higher percentage of the plants natural oils. I managed to film a video with my camera but it is too large upload so we will have to go with the still picture below. It shows all […]

The herbs are definitely liking all this heat, so before they squeeze each other out of the basket they are sharing, it was time for another “haircut”. Collect the herbs you would like to freeze from your garden, thanking them as you go. I will leave the question of washing up to you. If they […]

I hope you have been following along with the last two posts so that this one makes sense. To quickly recap if that is not the case, I made rhubarb lemonade syrup the other day and discovered that the “left over” puree was tasty and needed a better end than the garbage. I made a […]

Yesterday,  I posted Rhubarb Lemonade Syrup and talked a little about making full use of the gifts we get from the earth. After I was finished making the syrup, this was left over, the now sweet and lemony rhubarb “puree”. I tasted a little bit and “Mikey liked it”. My brain got working and this […]

This past week in My Kitchen Witch Alphabet, I wrote about protecting Gaia’s bounty and part of that is making sure that things are used before they go bad. Composting is another way of keeping the community earth healthy; a place for food past its best but once something has been picked or purchased, it […]

This year I was the very thankful recipient of one of Jean’s herb baskets. From left to right it has oregano, thyme, rosemary, chives and parsley. Jean popped in some tarragon as well but it is not ready for any harvesting. The downside with having happy herbs is that they grow and before things get out […]