Elderberry Syrup

My parents have a 40 acre farm and woods and have tons of wild elderberries growing. So I decided to make lots of elderberry syrup and dehydrate some too. There are a ton of great benefits to elderberry syrup, I'm glad to have lots to last us through the winter. It says to take 1-2 TBS a day to help the immune system (for adults), I'll give the kids a little less. I'll probably double that up when I feel like I'm coming down with something. It is not good to eat the berries raw, as I've heard they will give you stomach upset. There are recipes out there for muffins, pie, jelly, wine, etc, but I just made the syrup.  

Here are about half of the berries we picked. I forgot to take a pic before we started stripping the berries off of the stems.  

Here is most of the berries off of the stem.

The elderberries simmering. This step took a long time and no matter how long you cook them down, the syrup never got really thick.

Here it is all done with the honey added.

My husband and I are disagreeing about how long elderberry syrup lasts! He read that it only lasts 1 month in the fridge, I read 3-6 months in the fridge. So we froze some of the syrup, left some in the fridge and dehydrated some of the berries to make more syrup if we need to. If you have an elderberry tree or know someone who does, now is the time to pick and make your syrup!


Here is the recipe I used:

• 1 cup fresh or 1/2 cup dried elderberries
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup raw honey (make sure your honey is raw and from a good source and make sure to cool the syrup before adding the honey, so you get all those good benefits from the raw honey too!)

1. Heat the berries and water to a boil, then reduce to simmer for 30-45 minuets.

2. Mash the berries, strain, cool and add 1 cup of raw honey. I add a half cup of the purple liquid to a measuring cup, then pour in honey until the total volume is 1 1/2 cups. Then stir to mix well, and add to the rest of the reserved liquid.

3. Bottle and store, refrigerated. for 2-3 months.

4. Enjoy a tablespoon daily to keep the immune system strong, use more often when afflicted with the flu.

I also got a few peaches canned. I'll be doing tomatoes soon! I hope to get enough tomatoes canned this year to last us through the Winter and Spring. I canned almost enough to last us last year, I believe we made it until April or so. I used my new BPA free tattler reusable canning lids on the peaches, I'm so excited to have these this year!

Summer!

Its Summer, my favorite season! We are outside a lot, even in this heat! It got up to 105 this week, ugh! Anyway, we've been doing a lot and here are some of the things we've been up to since I last blogged!

At the park, after it rained so much this Spring, the river was really high.

At a local historical museum!

Spray painting a sheet with watered down paint in a spray bottle.

 At the park with our homeschool friends!

 L and A at A's Birthday Party!

L and A's Grandma, aka the clown! 

 Sparklers at a friends house!

 Playing dress-up at the library.

 We went to an ice cream social at the park!

 Sweet boy! (Finally smiling AND looking at the camera!)

We went and saw "Annie" put on by a local performing group. The little girl that played Annie is homeschooled! L is now obsessed with Annie and sings all the songs, all the time! I had to make her a dress and matching doll dress, but she is going to be Annie for Halloween, so two birds with one stone!

Getting ready to watch Cars 2!

Having fun in the pool at home!

At the beach!

Lanie at the last two American Girl classes at the book store. I'm so impressed for a free class, they do such a good job!

Our garden at the beginning of summer:

Now: (Yeah it really hasn't changed much. I am really not impressed by Mel's Mix in the book Square Foot Gardening. No matter how much we water and add compost, it never seems to do well. We will not being using Mel's Mix next year. But I do love Square Foot Gardening!)

 This is our other garden plot, with regular top soil, in the beginning of summer: (We did the corn from seed and the zucchini on the right from seed and the watermelon was a seedling that we bought.)

 And now: (we added the tomato plants in the front after that first pic was taken.)

 I don't have a before pic of this one, but these are all tomatoes and one watermelon. 

Our first baby watermelon!

A baby cucumber!

 My herbs. They on the other hand are doing well with Mel's Mix, although I think they would be much bigger with regular topsoil.

I think I'm all caught up now! :)

Raspberry Lemonade!

I adapted this recipe from The Nourishing Apron. Such a cool Summer drink and the kids always ask for it!

First you need 5-6 organic lemons. You will get around 1 1/2-2 cups lemon juice.

After the lemons are all squeezed, I added about 3/4 cup thawed raspberries and mash them around with a fork. I really like how they kind of dissolve in the lemon juice. Let this sit for 10 minutes or so. 

Meanwhile, I grated the lemons to dehydrate the zest. Or I could have made some yummy muffins from Elana's Pantry. These look good too!

Then you are ready to add the raspberry/lemon mixture to about 6 cups filtered water. If you like chunks, you can just add it right in, my family does not, so I strain it out. 

Then add sweetener to taste. I added about 1/4-1/3 cup organic cane sugar and a little bit of stevia. I think you could probably do all stevia, but I don't like the stevia aftertaste and I think that it does better mixed with another sweetener. Now you are done and no red dye 40 in sight!

Oh, I also saved the raspberry/lemon pulp that was leftover from straining. I'm sure I can find something to use it in, so I threw it in the freezer.

Raspberry Lemonade 

1 1/2 - 2 cups fresh lemon juice 

3/4 cup raspberries

6 cups water

1/4-1/3 cup cane sugar, plus a little stevia

Squeeze lemon into a cup. Add raspberries and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Smash the raspberries with a small whisk or fork. Add the sugar and water and mix. Enjoy!

  

Rag Tie Curls!

We have been doing rag tie curls with L's hair for awhile. She loves having curly hair and asks me to do her hair every time she takes a shower! She sleeps in them fine and wakes up all curly in the morning! She does have natural waves (she was that curly when she was a baby!), but her hair usually stays in the curls for 2-3 days. The curls stayed much longer when her hair was shorter and better in the winter (less frizziness from the heat!). First, I cut several strips of fabric 1"x6", I'm not sure how many I use, less than 12 I believe. I do her hair when she gets right out of the shower, so the hair is really wet. 

First you wrap the end of the hair around the middle of the strip of fabric.

Then you roll it down toward the head and tie a knot. I tried to show in pics, its a little awkward at first, but it gets easier. Its basically like rolling a regular or foam curler, but the strip of fabric is the "curler". 

I make sure to section the hair in an alternating pattern, so you don't get one straight line of curls. I usually do larger curls and then in the morning, I separate them into smaller curls. I once did a lot of small curls and it basically turned out really frizzy. When I'm done rolling all the curls I have her spray them with hair spray and then spray them in the morning again. I use this natural hair spray, its not the strongest hold, but it is natural, so I can deal with that!    

This is what it looks like in the morning. It does relax a little more as the day goes on. I carefully separate those big curls into smaller curls, do a little spritz and she is ready for the day!