Kitchen Medicine

"Kitchen Medicine"              WINTER REMEDIES Healing With Honey When you select honey for medicinal use always buy a variety that is produced by an apiary local to your area. Ingesting local pollens found in honey can build resistance to allergies over time. The honey should be "raw", not heated or processed. Honey Flu Remedy Take a six inch ginger root and slice it. Put it in a non- aluminum pot with about three cups of fresh water. Cover the pot tightly and bring to a simmer. Allow the water to simmer (not boil) for about twenty minutes. Remove from the stove and add the juice of half a lemon, a pinch of cayenne pepper and honey to taste. This is a great remedy for bronchitis and flu. Honey Throat Syrup Take several cloves of fresh garlic (please don't use the genetically altered, odorless variety. It has lost it's healing virtue). Place the garlic in a blender with the juice of half a lemon. Blend until smooth. Add 1 cup raw honey and blend again. this mixture can be taken as it is in teaspoon doses for a sore throat or strained through a cheese cloth and bottled for later use. Garlic and Honey Wound Dressing If you have a cut or a wound wash it carefully and then apply chopped or mashed, raw garlic which will kill any bacteria or viruses. Cover the garlic with a slather of honey and apply a clean bandage. The honey will keep the wound anaerobic (without oxygen) so bacteria will be unable to grow in it. Roasted Garlic Sore Throat Remedy Take unpeeled cloves of fresh, raw garlic and place them in a pan over medium heat (do not use oil). Gently roast the cloves until they are soft to the touch. Remove them from the pan and allow them to cool . Peel and eat. Ginger Ale This is a good remedy for stomach flu and also makes a tasty beverage. Chop a large ginger root. Place the slices in a non aluminum pot and cover with several cups of fresh, cold water. Bring to a simmer and then simmer for twenty minutes. Remove the pot from the burner and while the liquid is still hot add honey or maple syrup to taste. Allow the mixture to cool. To make the ginger ale fill a glass one half full of the cooled mixture and add sparkling water until the glass is full. Voila! SUMMER REMEDIES Poison Ivy Wash Take Sweet Fern (Comptonia peregrina), a woody-stemmed fragrant herb that grows in wild places at the edges of fields and forests. Place the leaves in a clean glass jar until the jar is 2/3 full. Add Plantain leaves and Jewelweed (Impatiens) until the jar is packed full. Pour vodka over the herbs to the level of the top of the jar. Cover with a lid and allow the tincture to sit for three days. When he herbs begin to wilt and the liquid is brown strain out the herbs and reserve the liquid. Apply locally to poison ivy with a cotton ball four times a day. You will also want to take Burdock Root capsules (2 capsules, three times a day for a 150 pound adult) for about a week to clear the poison ivy out of your system. Scrapes, Sunburn, and Burn Salve Take equal parts of three or more of the following; Plantain leaves, Pine needles, Comfrey leaves, Elecampaign roots, Baby Oak leaves (not old ones), Wild Sarsaparilla roots, Bee Balm leaves, chopped Horse Chestnuts (the meat of the nut and the shiny brown covering), fresh, chopped green Walnut hulls. Add Calendula blossoms, and Lavender flowers, fresh or dried. Place the herbs in a non aluminum pot and cover with good quality olive oil. Bring to a simmer and simmer with a tight fitting lid for 20 minutes. In a separate pot bring fresh bees wax to a simmer. When both pots are of equal temperature, add 3 tablespoons of the hot beeswax for every cup of Olive oil to the pot with the herbs. Stir, strain and seal in a clean jar. This salve is great for diaper rash and if you add the Horse Chestnuts it makes a wonderful remedy for piles. Queen of Hungary Rosemary Cologne Use this cologne as a facial spray in the heat of summer or as a gentleman's after shave any time. Fill a glass jar with fresh Rosemary greens. Add a small amount of fresh Lavender blossoms, Lemon Balm leaves, a fragrant rose or two and a little Lemon zest if desired. Cover the herbs with Gin (Gin is flavored with Juniper berries), place a lid on the jar and let the mixture sit in the hot sun for two days. Strain and bottle.