The lilacs are starting to bloom! FYI this is the perfect time to collect some and try that Candied Flower recipe – you know you want to.

Or maybe you’d rather make some air freshening mixes that aren’t toxic. I saw some great dried lavender at the farmers market the other day, so maybe some local shops around your town have some as well.

Gather:

• Cedar shavings – 1-2 ounces (I like mine Cedar heavy, but most people like the lavender to shine through more).
• About 1/4 – 1/2 ounce dried pennyroyal (air dried best, but most of us don’t grow it so…)
• Dried lavender; about 1 1/2 ounces.
• A few whole cinnamon sticks.

To make:

Break up pennyroyal and lavender. Place on a cutting board and slighting crush over with wooden rolling pin. Mix in bowl. Add Cedar shavings. Grate some cinnimon sticks into the mix – you don’t have to grate an entire stick, just grate enough to allow a sprinkle of cinnamon to fall into the mix. Then pop the whole sticks right into the mix.

You can put this in a clay or other earthen bowl in your closet, or remove the cinnamon sticks and sew it into a bag and hang it in your house. It’s best in a bowl I think, because this is a pinch-generated mix. Meaning, once the smell starts to wear of, you can pinch, or in this case, re-crush with a rolling pin, and re-grate the cinnamon to perk the mix up. I’ve perked up this mix maybe four times before it starts to not work.

This mix has a homey, earthy, woodsy, slightly spicy scent. Of course experiment if you like or even add a few drops of essential oils. Oh, with homemade potpourri, you should keep it up if you have small children or pets. This mix is pretty safe, as far as mixes go, but pennyroyal in large amounts can be dangerious, and cedar shavings for pets have not been proven totally safe.

[photo via Jennifer Chait's "daily walk to the park" collection]

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

• Cake, pie, sorbet, ice cream, and cupcake toppers.
• Bag them up and give as gifts.
• Add to summer drinks.
• Decoration for dishes or around a holiday table.
• To teach kids about edible flowers.
• You can use super tiny bags and turn them into gift tags on presents. I’m not a fan of the plastic use here, but it looks fabulous.
• Add them to easter baskets.
• Wedding favors.

Plus they taste great. I made candied flowers for the first time when I was about 10 years old – candied lilacs actually and I’ve been in love with edible flowers ever since.

There are many recipes out there for candied, or crystallized flowers but the basic gist of most is simply that you’re going to be coating them with a sugar mixture.

Good flowers to sugar coat: Lilacs, violets, rose petals, cowslip, angelica, rosemary, sage, pinks, borage, primroses, and lavender. You can also coat leaves like lemon balm, lemon verbena, mint, and bergmot.

No matter what flowers you use, they always need to be home grown organic, or purchased from a reliable organic source. Flowers drink up and store pesticides easily, you don’t need that in your system.

To crystallize flowers and leaves:

1. Pick flowers on a sunny dry day.
2. Remove stalks and white bases from petals, also remove any petals that look funky from your pile, because the sugaring makes problems stand out.
3. Lightly beat an egg white until just foamy.
4. Dip each flower into the egg white to coat. You can use plastic tweezers (metal will bruise petals).
5. Dip into caster sugar.
6. Place on wax paper atop a wire cooling rack.
7. Place in your extremely low heated oven with the door slightly open – I tried open air solar flowers once, but forgot that little flowers will just blow away. Don’t do it. I suppose you could place your flowers in an enclosed solar oven, but you’d have to make sure you could maintain low heat, and solar cookers tend to get super hot.
8. Once they dry in the oven, store in an airtight container. I’m not sure how long you can keep them, they’re never around long enough for me to find out – people love them.

There are other same-minded, but slightly different recipes around:

Create delicious candied flowers

A Spring Trifle – with candied lilacs

Orange Blossom Cake with Candied Orchids

Take Time to Stop and Eat the Flowers

Edible Flowers: Cook, Grow, Buy – a truly excellent read.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family

The answer to this tree hug quiz is Tea Tree.

I use tea tree oil a lot. The other day I was thinking, so… “Is there really a tea tree?” I looked it up, thinking I’d find a shrub or small plant, but there is a tea tree. It’s native to Australia and while the tree resembles a shrub, it’s a tree.

Tea tree essential oil is a great all-purpose oil. You can use it for tons of stuff and it’s *safe for the whole family. Tea tree has properties that allow it to work as an antifungal, antibacterial, and antiviral application. It can be used to treat acne, sunburns, athlete’s foot, toothache, colds, and more.

Here’s one basic use:

If you have the flu or a bad cold a mixture of 5-6 drops tea tree essential oil, 3 drops lavender, and 2 drops thyme in a nice warm bath can help. Alternatively you can add the mixture to a very wet loofa or washcloth and use in the shower. This mix helps to sooth achy muscles, clear sinuses, and relax your body. I like to use organic essential oils but you can use basic oils – they do go through more processing though.

To learn more about tea tree and it’s uses, take a look at the following resources:

The many uses of tea tree. This site has some nice recipes too.

About the tree.

Purchase organic tea tree oil at Florame.

*Please note that I’m not a licensed aromatherapist. If you decide to use essential oils, make sure you know a little something about essential oils, and how to use them safely. Always do a little dab test before applying oil to large parts of your body. If you don’t know what a dab test is, don’t use essential oils until you get yourself a good essential oil use book or talk to a professional holistic health care professional. I suggest this book as a good way to start learning about essential oils.

Post from: Tree Hugging Family