Making Rose Water

About mid July, I looked out the kitchen window at the abundance of wild roses in my yard and started thinking about the rose water I use in my lotion recipes. I began collecting petals every day until I had enough to try the steam distilling method. This is about a week's worth of petals - they stay fresh in the fridge. Here's what you do (the post title links to a great YouTube video too):

Start with a large pot and put a heavy bowl upside down in the middle - it has to be heavy or it'll float. I'm using the mortar from my grandfather's mortar & pestle. Start filling petals around the upside down bowl to about the top of it - way more than in this photo. Then add distilled water - no measuring here, just so the petals are floating but don't go above the top of the upside down bowl.

Next, put a small bowl on top of the upside down bowl like this. The distilled rose water will be collected in this bowl.

Put the top on - inverted. Bring the water in the pot to a boil and add ice to the inverted top. The steam from the boiling water rises, condenses when it hits the ice cold top and drips into the bowl - voila rose water!

It's hard to see in this picture, but the petals are very pale from being boiled and there's a splash of rose water in the bowl. With as many petals as I had, I made three batches.

Here's the end result - steam distilled rose water to use in culinary and skin care recipes.

Another way to do it, although it's not steam distilled so not as potent, is to boil the petals, strain them and use the water for facial toners, etc. Here's a YouTube video showing this method and my strained water left over from steam distilling. If I add some vegetable glycerin and aloe to this in small batches it will make a lovely face toner. Looks like I'll have enough to last a lifetime! 

Oh yeah, the house smells great too!

Spring 2014 in Marquette

It was a long, cold winter this year.  I don't remember ice on the lake in June since 1997, and then it was just a little.  I didn't take this photograph, but it's taken at the end of my street, and yes, it was taken May 31st! Walked along the waters edge at Wetmore Landing today and after a while my feet got acclimated and didn't hurt anymore.

It's a wonderful time of year here as things just start to burst into life again. My bleeding heart flowers popped overnight, lilacs will be opening in a few days and we had a thunderstorm today, just after planting some of the vegetable garden.  It was so hot yesterday that we had to stop planting and rest in the shade (I'm not complaining though).

Looking forward to fresh food from the garden this summer and filling the pantry with green & wax beans, carrots, tomatoes & beets.  Will post pictures as soon as the seeds come up!

Making Calendula Oil from the Garden!

Earlier this year I learned about Calendula, an amazing flower that can be infused in an oil and used in lotions, salves, etc.  A few friends of mine have pretty bad eczema and they say that Calendula oil has been the only treatment that's worked!  (For more on the healing properties of Calendula, click on the post title to visit a Mountain Rose Herb Blog post). This spring I found some plants at the local co-op and put them in my flower bed - wow, what a prolific flower!  Every day, around noon, I pick 3 or 4 flowers and add them to my drying rack.

I keep them in my basement where there's a dehumidifier running all summer. I've been drying for several weeks and finally have enough to start an infusion. Here's the dried flowers ready to add oil. 

Several recipes call for EVOO but I chose sunflower oil that I buy in bulk at the co-op. 

Now it's just a matter of 4-6 weeks in a sunny window, then I'll strain the flowers out and use the oil for my lotions. It's been a great DIY summer, made steam distilled rose water too, but that will be another post...

November carrots

Yesterday was the warmest Thanksgiving day I remember and probably a record here.  I'm sure it was over 60 degrees and on our way home from dinner with family we saw kids wearing t-shirts and shorts! Then, at 1 a.m., the wind started howling and we woke to a full-on blizzard. Knowing a storm was on its way, my husband pulled up the carrots yesterday. This represents about 1/3 and they're blanched and ready to vacuum seal for the freezer.  Very tender and sweet, even the large ones.  It will be a great winter with green beans, carrots, pesto and dried tomatoes in the freezer!

First Time Canning!

I've been wanting a canner of my own and finally went to Target and found this one on sale.  It has a funnel, jar holder and all sorts of peripheral gadgets that I'm not sure what to do with.  I've done some canning before, but nothing that required a hot water bath process.  Last year I put up 13 quarts of tomatoes and there's still 2 in the pantry.  This year I'm trying salsa - I try to put up things that we normally buy at the grocery store - the whole idea is to save some money with the garden.  Since we can go through 2 jars of salsa a week, this will definitely help the grocery bill.  The recipe, Rockin' Salsa from Allrecipes.com, looked to have great ingredients that can easily be changed up to taste.  The canning instructions were detailed enough that I felt confident to try it as my first hot water bath adventure.  It was a fun experience (my hubby helped), and now we have 7 jars of salsa in the cupboard!  The recipe makes 8 pints but we had to keep one out to try and it's gone!  Very tasty - will definitely be making more as I have 12 tomato plants heavy with green fruit.

The Pesto Process

I  bought my three basil plants back in May when they were just a few inches high.  The U.P. summer has been so amazing that harvest time is here!  I documented the pesto this year - here's the steps from the garden to the freezer:

From the garden

One plant washed

Basil, garlic, fresh parm, olive oil & pine nuts in the food processor

Voila Pesto!

In cube trays ready to freeze

Three ginormous plants = 7 trays of pesto cubes!  It's gonna be a great winter...

Pesto:

2 cups packed washed basil

2 - 3 cloves garlic

1/4 cup pine nuts (I've used walnuts and hazelnuts too)

1/2 - 2/3 cup olive oil

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

process until smooth, I transfer to ice cube trays to freeze, then put in a ziplock in freezer or vacuum seal.

Today's Harvest!

Green beans - 1st pick!  Now to blanch and pull out the vacuum sealer for freezing.

This is the first time I've harvested lavender from my front flower bed.  I never imagined I'd get so much!

The plan is to make sachet pouches/dream pillows out of batik scraps that I have.

Fresh dinner tonight!

Our garden this year has tomatoes, basil, cilantro, beets, carrots, beans, radish, peas, corn, lettuce, spinach, kale, swiss chard, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, acorn squash and butternut squash (whew!).
For dinner tonight we picked our first zucchini, yellow squash, peas, a red onion, and had a salad with the greens.

Can't wait for ripe tomatoes and fresh salsa!  And the corn is amazing!  This is the first year I've tried it and every stalk has tassels!

Vases are full!

Picked lillies, globe thistles, lavender and astilbe today for a mighty fine bouquet.   Mums have started to bud and ornamental grasses are getting tall.  An earlier post shows what it looked like the end of May.  It will be over way too soon...

Fresh!

Picked peas and beets today!  Made pesto a week ago, eating lettuce and spinach regularly.  Now if those tomatoes would just ripen...Cukes and zucchini are slow this year too.  Lovin the sunflowers, but no flowers yet.

View out my window

Weeded the flower bed yesterday, and boy am I sore today.  The weather was perfect, a cool fog off the lake all day.  A good downpour last night was much needed and perfect timing.  We've got iris, lillies, bleeding heart, globe thistles and ornamental grasses along with lavender, lamb's ear and of course hens & chicks nestled into stones down in front.  Later in the year, we'll see bee balm, coneflower and hydrangea.  In the fall it will be mums and sedum flowers.

Ready for Veggies

We've doubled the size of our vegetable garden this year.  Added topsoil and roto-tilled yesterday.  Perimeter fencing going up today to keep the bunnies away.  Now to plot it out, gonna try the Garden Planner.

It's that time again!

Check out this garden planner at Gardener's Supply.  You start by designing your site, then add plants to rows.  It gives you the details about your chosen veggies - how to sow, when to harvest and tips on watering and weather.  This will come in handy since we're doubling our garden this year.  Just had 12 yards of topsoil delivered last weekend.  Now I'll have to use the Soil Calculator to figure out how much compost to add.  Called our friends at Avalon Farms to schedule our alpaca poop pick-up, hopefully for this weekend.