An Herbal Diary

An installment in my continued commitment to not waste the abundant and aggressive nettle crop I have growing in my yard. These green sauces are an embrace of life for me, a pathway to the things that I love: recipe collecting, discovery of brilliant herbal use and reason to shop for interesting ingredients, green or otherwise. Please come along and sauce with me.

To Blanch Nettle/Remove the Sting:

Use tongs or gloves to handle prior to blanching

Heat a small amount of water in a large pot

Plunge nettle leaf into hot water or place in a steamer basket

Boil for 3-7 minutes until just wilted

Refresh with cold water or in a bowl of iced water

For Nettle Salsa Verde:

6-7 tomatillos, remove husks, scrub under water

4 cups nettle leaf (1/3 pound, blanched

1 sweet onion, peeled and quartered.

2-3 Serrano chilis

4 cloves garlic, peeled

12 to 15 sprigs of cilantro

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 tsp salt or to taste

find preparation instructions here

For Nettle Pesto:

3 cups nettle leaves, blanched

1/4 cup fresh mint leaves

1 clove garlic, chopped into pieces

1/2 cup pine nuts which you can toast a bit or you don't have to

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/3 cup olive oil

1/4 cup grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

2-3 tablespoons softened butter

salt and pepper to taste

Find preparation instructions here

Mentions:

Mediterranean Grains and Greens by Paula Wolfert

---Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

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CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Join me on Patreon

Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

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ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

Materia medica tells a plant's story. Please join me to explore and appreciate one of the herbalism sweethearts, a far cry from bothersome weed. I hope by the end you will love dandelion and never want to spray it with chemicals again.

Taraxacum officinale = Dandelion: leaf, root, flower, stem

Photos of Tarasque in Tarascon, France

Sources for Dandelion:

Black Locust Gardens - fresh

Oshala Farm - dried

White PIne Community Farm - dried

Mountain Rose Herbs - dried leaf, root, roasted root, extracts, powder, capsules

Herbalist & Alchemist - leaf extract, root extract, glycerite

Dandelion Wine

---Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Join me on Patreon

Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

Can we refashion the reputation of weeds? With many negative connotations surrounding weeds it's hard to switch their image to foods and herbal medicines to love. We may call them edible weeds or wild foods, but I would love to change the name. I'm working on my own relationship with weeds by getting to know lamb's quarters.

Mentions:

Edible Weeds

Online Foraging Course from the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine

Lamb's quarters photos

Book mentions:

Fasting and Feasting, The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray by Adam Federman

Honey from a Weed, Fasting and Feasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, the Cyclades and Apulia

by Patience Gray

Plats du Jour by Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd

Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Join me on Patreon

Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

Popping up here to offer you tea, through recipes instead of actually serving it. I promise for the time it takes to wait in line or sit in the drive thru, you can make your own chai, tweak it to how you like it and best of all experience some good medicine.

Recipe for Masala Chai

4 whole cloves

1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, that I've cut into thin slices

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

4 or 5 grinds of pepper

1 ½ teaspoon loose leaf black tea

1 ¾ cup water

½ teaspoon honey

¼ cup organic milk (whole milk, soy milk, oat milk, nut milk or coconut milk)

Combine spices together in a small saucepan and add 1 3/4 cup or 14 ounces water. Bring to a gentle boil over medium low heat covered with lid slightly open. Simmer 20 minutes. Turn off heat, add 1 1/2 teaspoon loose leaf black tea. Cover with the lid tight, steep 10 minutes. Strain. Pour tea back into saucepan. Add honey and milk. Bring back to simmer and allow film ot form on top. Stir before drinking.

Ingredient Sources

Dona Chai Concentrate

Classic Chai from Mountain Rose Herbs

Oregon's Wild Harvest

Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Join me on Patreon

Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

Coughs can be so uncomfortable. Coughs can linger after the cold has long gone. Herbal cough syrups hold possibility to soothe and quiet a cough or support expectoration. Today's kitchen medicine has three steps and uses three herbs combined to make a cough syrup that keeps in the refrigerator for when you need it.

Ingredients for Wild Cherry Cough Syrup:

Dried Mullein Leaf, Dried Wild Cherry Bark, Dried Angelica Root

Water, Honey

Tinctures: 2 ounces each of Wild Cherry, Mullein Leaf and Angelica Root

Cough Syrup Recipe Instructions:

Day 1: make teas (measure as volume in glass measuring cup)

Wild Cherry Bark

6 ounce dried wild cherry bark

6 ounce room temperature or cool water

Combine in glass jar with lid

Let sit, covered at room temperature overnight or 12 hours. Strain.

Refrigerate until ready to use

Mullein Leaf

4 ounce dried mullein leaf

4 ounce hot water

Combine and steep for 30 minutes. Strain

Refrigerate until ready to use

Day 2: make honeys

Mullein Leaf

1 ounce prepared strong mullein tea

1 ounce honey

Gently warm tea, then stir in honey until dissolved

Angelica Root

5 ounce dried angelica root

5 ounce honey

Combine angelica root and honey in top of double boiler. Add 1-2 inches of water to bottom of double boiler and heat to gentle simmer. Add top of double boiler and cover. Simmer on lowest heat for 6-8 hours, stirring occasionally. Add more honey if needed so angelica root remains immersed in it. Strain while still warm.

Day 3: finish syrup

Measure 2 ounces of each tincture - angelica root, mullein leaf, wild cherry bark

Combine honeys, tea and tinctures in large (32oz) glass measuring cup. Stir to combine.

Pour into smaller bottles using a funnel for neatness. Label. Keep in refrigerator.

Mentions:

Mountain Rose Herbs - source for dried herbs

Jim McDonald, Herbalist - herbcraft.org

Juliet Blankespoor's Online Herbal Immersion

Herbalist & Alchemist - source for tinctures

Specialty Bottle - source for glass medicine bottles

Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Join me on Patreon

Connect with me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

Sometimes prayers are not answered. A dedication to my mom...

Mentions:

Herbalist & Alchemist Compound Formula: David Winston's Grief Relief

No Fear, No Death by Thich Nhat Hanh

Inward by Yung Pueblo

Herbs for next episode's Cough syrup:

Angelica Root

Wild Cherry Bark

Mullein Leaf

Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

Adding herbs to a cold and flu season supply kit is easy and valuable peace of mind. Clear a space in your kitchen apothecary for dried herb blends for tea and steam inhalations, tinctures for prevention and symptoms as well as a few homemade syrups. Please listen in as I share my favorites.

Cold and Flu Kitchen Apothecary Survival Kit

Foods for medicine

Honey, garlic, onion, ginger, dried sage & thyme

Tea Blends

Chai blend - 2 parts cinnamon & ginger, 1 part cardamom, ½ part clove & black pepper

Diaphoretic blend - yarrow, peppermint, elderflower, linden flower

Steam inhalation Blend

2 peppermint & elderflower tea bags, a spoon of thyme, sage & oregano and a drop or two of lavender & eucalyptus essential oil

Tinctures and Syrups

For prevention - echinacea tincture, elderberry syrup

Tinctures for coughs - wild cherry bark, mullein leaf, angelica

Interested in a medicine making episode on elderberry syrup? Send me a message and let me know! [email protected]

Mentions:

Favorite echinacea tincture: Herbalist & Alchemist Ultimate Echinacea

Echinacea glycerite

Elderberry glycerite

Favorite chaga chai: Masala chai from the Chaga Company

Favorite essential oil brand: Floracopeia

Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

There's no time like the present moment to stock up on kitchen medicine cabinet remedies that nourish the immune system, both for prevention and treating symptoms. This apple cider vinegar and honey combination is more like cooking than medicine making.

If you're cooking along while you listen, you will need the following:

½ cup grated fresh horseradish root, approximately 6-8 inch piece

½ cup chopped onions, (1 medium onion)

¼ cup chopped garlic, (about 10-12 cloves depending on their size)

¼ cup grated fresh ginger, (about a 4-6 inch piece)

Chopped fresh or dried chili pepper or ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper

32 ounces organic apple cider vinegar

½ cup honey

Equipment: 1 quart Mason jar with lid; cutting board, sharp knife, hand grater, wax paper

Mentions:

Herbmentor/Learning Herbs - there is a $10 monthly membership fee

Course: Rosemary's Remedies

#trademarkfreefirecider

Sources for Purchasing Fire Cider Immune Tonics

Herbal Revolution Fire Tonic

Locally Good Herbal Cider Tonic

Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss.

Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

Deep roots symbolize durability, resiliency and unfaltering character, they are grounded and strong. For plants, roots are a matter of life or death. Cut off a plant's roots then replant it, the plant won't survive. Autumn is the time for roots in the kitchen and in herbalism.

Burdock Root and Carrot Nut Torte: get the recipe here

Burdock Tea Decoction:

Combine 1 tablespoon burdock root, fresh or dried, for each 1 cup water in small saucepan, simmer covered 45 min to 1 hour, then steep for 45 minutes and strain.

Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.

Autumn and roots go hand and hand. I'm outside foraging through my weedy disarrayed backward to find treasure in the form of horseradish root. Join me for a successful harvest.

Gardening podcasts:

Plantrama

Living Homegrown

Mentions:

Plants: horseradish, pokeweed, nettle, burdock, motherwort

Plant Healer Magazine

Chestnut School Of Herbal Medicine

Deepest gratitude to Andrea Klunder, my podcast boss. Find her at thecreativeimposter.com.

Original music by Dylan Rice

---

CONNECT WITH DINA

---

Please send me you comments, requests, or feedback. Send me a message, voice or write an email, my email is [email protected].

I look forward to hearing from you!

To get herb inspired recipes, plant profiles and read more about herbal medicine, visit my website at: theherbalbakeshoppe.com

Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram

If you enjoyed this episode, please SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW where ever you like to listen to podcasts! And if you have time, kindly leave me a rating and review.

---

ABOUT DINA

---

Dina Ranade is a Registered Herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild and a Registered Dietitian/Nutritionist. She is also a mom of three - two daughters in college and a 17 year old son finishing up high school. Dina loves cooking for her family despite the challenges that this creates. She passionately loves exploring culinary herbalism and has been working on stocking her home kitchen apothecary or medicine cabinet.