Once, far north in woods filled with birch and hemlock, a wild-haired hobbit-ish creature lived in a four-story wooden tower on five acres at the end of a dirt road, with her Pooh-like book-keeping roommate and also a stray lioness who one day wandered into the aforementioned hobbit’s bed and shed all manner of cat hair. And while all appeared pretty freaking magical most days —
IT WOULD NOT STOP SNOWING. And whoever built the wooden tower in those far north woods thought it would be a great idea to have the ONLY heat source in the tower be dependent upon electricity, which meant that every time another dead branch fell on a powerline, the hobbit and book-keeper and lioness trudged through the snow over the mountain to their friends’ house on the hill, whose the gas stove didn’t depend on the grid to spit out its little licks of heat.
Okay, I’ll stop. You get it. I’m so sick of winter! So, of course, I’m trying to cook my way through it, and I just thought I’d share three recipes that have been really saving my insulated-Carhartt-clad booty. Because, sometimes, like true beauty, warmth is an internal experience.
FIRE CIDER
This has become an old standby on my kitchen shelf, so this year I just went ahead and made a half-gallon of it, as the book-keeper and the lioness really like to dip their spoons into this spicy brew. I first learned to make fire cider in southern Appalachia, where it doesn’t snow nearly as much, though a winter wind is still liable to cut right through you. Folks down there also call it “Cyclone Cider” and tell me that during the infusion process sometimes they’ll bury the whole jar in the ground for two or three weeks, biodynamic-style.
The gist of this recipe is that you pack a jar full of chopped spicy anti-microbial immune-boosting vegetables, cover them with raw apple cider vinegar, and let the brew sit for two to four weeks, shaking it now and again. This folk recipe can change according to what you have growing around you, but the standard ingredients include raw chopped onions, garlic, ginger, horseradish, hot peppers, and parsley. I also love to add turmeric root fresh or dried, burdock root, and fresh rosemary. Traditional Unani-Tibb (which means “Greek medicine” in Arabic) would call many of these herbs “warming in the 4th degree,” which is one reason they are very useful for sluggish winter circulation. The flavanoids and other antioxidants in these vegetables, including vitamin C, allicin, and quercetin, all provide protection against oxidative stress, and many of these have been linked to gut health, which is useful since integrative health practitioners and granny healers alike will tell you up and down that the gut is the seat of healing.
Some folks like to take tablespoons of Fire Cider in their salad dressing, while others can take straight shots of it, which is not for the faint of heart or those equipped with bland palates. I myself like to mix my twice-a-day tablespoon with a bit of honey infused with spilanthes flowers (a truly magical immune herb which I plant to wax all sorts of poetic over in a future blog post!). A word of warning: always take your Fire Cider at meals, rather than on an empty stomach. Once, while traveling in Guatemala, I experienced a solid week of nausea in the mornings and feared I was somehow divinely with child, until I realized I was taking my spoonful of Fire Cider on an empty stomach. Remember, this stuff is hot in the 4th degree!
GINGER ELDER SYRUP
Those of you herbal geeks probably know that Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis or nigra) has received all manner of attention in recent years due to its anti-viral potential in relation to virulant flu strains. Elderberry is a rich purple-black berry that grows in clustery crowns and are just as fragrant as the delicate white elder flowers they arise from. Researchers posit that the anthocyanin flavanoids, can be detected in blood plasma after taking elderberry extract by mouth, are helpful in the case of flu on several counts. Elder anthocyanins can stimulate the immune system’s production of cytokines by monocytes, and these flavanoids may also have an anti-inflammatory effect which helps sooth the ache and fever of viral infections. Other research has shown that elderberry prevents the flu virus from adhering to cell receptors.
Plus it just tastes good. When I last put a big pot of elderberry on the stove to simmer, the book-keeper and the lioness appear from the far reaches of the tower, sniffing the air. Since elder trees seem to ripen at different times, and since the time of year (late summer) during which to harvest elderberries is so darn busy, I’ve found it easiest to dry the berries as they become ready and then make batches of syrup as needed throughout the season.
So how to work the magic? You’ll need:
3/4 cup dried elderberry
3 3/4 cups water
2 tablespoons raw chopped ginger
1 cup raw honey
Bring the elderberries to boil in a large pot, and then reduce the heat to a simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the fluid is reduced by half. Remove from heat and allow to cool until you can strain the berries out without burning your fingers. When lukewarm, stir honey into the remaining liquid and mix until thoroughly dissolved. I pour my syrups into an old salad dressing or bourbon bottle, and I store it in the refrigerator. It lasts for months, unless the lioness gets into it.
SAVORY WINTER OATS
When its still dark outside, and the floor is so cold on my feet, and I have to get up early to do something like haul wood pellets up two flights of stairs to stoke the stove, I could really use some fortification. Savory oats is the closest I have been able to come to eating macaroni and cheese for breakfast, and on these cold mornings fortification coincides happily with comfort food.
I prefer steel-cut oats for their texture, and even when I use rolled oats, I like to soak them overnight, if I can remember to do it, along with some walnuts, slivered almonds, and/or pumpkin seeds, for extra protein and to release some of that pesky phytic acid. If you’d like to add seaweed and it’s not ground finely, its nice to soak that overnight too, but in a separate container, because you don’t want to lose the good stuff in the seaweed. I know this seems basic, but remember to strain out the water from the soaking water from the oats, because you want to let that stuff go.
To keep the texture of the oats lovely, bring fresh water to boil before adding the strained oats, nuts, and seeds. If you’re using ground seaweed, this is the time to add a tablespoon or so. If you’ve soaked larger pieces of seaweed, you can toss those and their water into the pot with the oats. Once the oats have cooked to the desired consistency, remove from the heat and add any or all of the following: grass-fed butter or coconut oil, miso, black pepper, and nutritional yeast. Sometimes I ever grate a little carrot into the mix.
I could write reams about the benefits of pumpkin seeds (your prostate!) or seaweed (your everything!), but really I just want to tell you about oats, Avena. About their nervous-system nourishing, gut-soothing honesty, the uncomplicated kindness that a field of oats lends to does bedding down with new spring fawns, the juicy sexy seed that can work slow and steady wonders to a taxed adrenal system. Besides being packed full of minerals, Avena contains alkaloids that research suggests exert calming and restorative effect on the central nervous system. I find it immensely comforting that such powerful medicine can be had from such a humble plant.
Once, I gave a workshop to a room full of homestead-minded middle-aged ladies, and what do you think their favorite recipe was they tasted that day? Not the luscious damiana-and-rosemary-infused chocolate, not the rich bone broth or the rose petal honey. Nope. The oatmeal, that warm goopy old morning standby, all spruced-up. They loved it. Serious.