Unstuffed: The Urban Homestead Series: Forager's Alchemy

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

The Urban Homestead Series: Forager's Alchemy

I decanted my sumac tincture the other day and though I'm happy to have this wonderful medicine with it's many uses, I realised that I have a lot more tincture than I will probably go through until sumac season comes around again next year.

Since I enjoy making and drinking sumac lemonade, (or sumacade as I like to call it) and I'm experimenting with herbal liqueurs and had some simple syrup left over from making basilcello, I thought I'd try making a hard sumacade.

I poured off the amount I wanted to keep for tincture and the rest I slowly mixed with the simple syrup until I felt I had the right balance of sweet and sour. I imagine this will be sipping liqueur, or a refreshing cocktail with soda water, to enjoy in small amounts. I won't really know how the whole thing turns out until the infused alcohol and syrup mingles for a month or so, but preliminary sips leave me very hopeful that this will be a tasty combination. At the very least, it sure looks pretty.

6 comments:

Tony R. said...: It does look good...makes me want pancakes! Or maybe pull a "buddy"...syrup in coffee!; September 30, 2009 at 9:18 AM
Amber said...: Ooo, nice! Now you've got me thinking about other uses for it.

I'm thinking drizzled over ice cream, as a glaze for baked goods or even roasted veggies or tofu maybe, as part of a salad dressing possibly, anywhere you might want a sweet and sour, lemony flavour. Hmmm...can't wait to experiment. I wonder how it would work as a hot toddy...; September 30, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Scout said...: I discovered a recipe for sumac lemonade this summer, in an edible plant book. I made a couple of small batches during our camping trip in early September, in the mornings when our water (filtered lake water) was still cool from the crisp overnight temperatures. We didn't sweeten it, we loved it just the way it tasted after brewing. What a fantastic treat it was!

In other camping news, can you believe I forgot to pack the dried vegetables I had prepared for soup? It was a very modest attempt at dehydrating our own camp food, but I *forgot* to pack it. Doh!! We had to settle for all of the other MRE packets we brought. Still haven't tried my soup yet, but with these colder temperatures, I will soon!; October 1, 2009 at 9:46 PM
Amber said...: Hey Scout, fresh sumacade from cold, filtered lake water, outside on a September morning sounds just like my idea of heaven!

Too bad about your dried veggies though. I can imagine that must've have been disappointing. But think of all the good food you now have preserved for the winter! :); October 2, 2009 at 9:11 AM
Scout said...: Thanks Amber! I should be careful not to overstate the amount of veggies I dried. Although it seemed like a *tonne* when I started, I think it probably only amounts to a few bowls of soup. However, I will relish every spoonful!!!; October 3, 2009 at 9:27 AM
Amber said...: Enjoy your soup Scout! Every little bit counts.; October 4, 2009 at 10:15 AM

Raison d'etre

In 2008 I didn't buy anything new for the whole year. Food and basic toiletries (but not toilet paper) were the obvious exceptions (twice I broke my own rule). Used items were allowed, but I tried really hard to reduce consumption as much as possible.

I finished my year successfully, and along the way learned a lot about how much the world consumes, the waste we produce, sustainability, voluntary simplicity, climate change, peak oil, resource depletion, the water crisis, the food crisis, voting with your dollar, voting with your fork....

Now, I've transformed into a slightly nutty, very passionate, gardening, preserving, DIYing, simple living, nature loving, weed eating, backyard medicine making, urban homesteader, and I still don't use toilet paper!

With the help of the Awesomedudeguy (ADG), I'm continuing my exploration of living lightly and frugally, while increasing my self-sufficiency and resiliency, staying debt free, and preparing for a climate changed, resource depleted world, in uncertain economic times.

My nothing new restriction is lifted, but I continue to be a gentle, local consumer as much as possible.

My hope is that some of the information and resources I post about here will be helpful to others. Thanks so much for stopping by !

Yours in unstuffing,
Amber

"Forgive me if I never visit. I am from the fields, you know, and while quite at home with dandelion, make a sorry figure for the drawing room" ~Emily Dickinson

"I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that.... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature." ~Abraham Cowley

"The laws of nature are under no obligation to cater to our culture’s emotionally charged fantasies of perpetual progress and limitless growth." ~John Michael Greer

"Sometimes we think we are too small to make a difference in this big world. Our actions seem insignificant in comparison to global issues such as climate change and population growth. However, the reality is that action on an individual level is exactly how big changes are made. Without individual and family sustainability, there’s no community sustainability. And without community sustainability, there’s no global sustainability. In fact, earth-wide change is absolutely impossible without individual change.
It really does come down to you and me."
~From Living Sustainably: It's Your Choice

"The universal conspiracy of the silent-assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. Is it the most timid and shabby of all lies? It seems to have the look of it. For ages and ages it has mutely laboured in the interest of despotisms and aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military slaveries, and religious slaveries, and has kept them alive; keeps them alive yet, here and there and yonder, all about the globe; and will go on keeping them alive until the silent-assertion lie retires from business--the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men and women are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop." ~Mark Twain

"It is not enough simply to abstain from theft...We must remember that nothing in this world really belongs to us. At best, we are merely borrowers. It is our duty, therefore, to borrow no more from the world than we absolutely need, and to make full and proper use of it. Taking more than we need, and wasting it, is a form of stealing from the rest of humankind."
~Commentary on Sutra 30 The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali