Valerian

Two squirrels in the head disorder

As the physician states, valerian relaxes without the side effects of most drugs used to produce the same result. It won't make you feel drowsy or drugged. The muscles and the mind are just relaxed. There is a condition I call "two squirrels in the head disorder". One of its symptoms is that your mind starts racing nonstop from one stressful thought to the next when all you really want to do is fall asleep. It's like having two squirrels in your head chasing each other's tails.

Of course, this usually happens when you have something going on the next morning that is killer important, some sort of activity that required your being at your best. The more you can't sleep, the more you check the clock to see how much sleep you haven't had thus far. At this junction, if you hop out of bed and make yourself a cup of hot valerian tea, the squirrels will move on, and your mind will slow down enough for you to fall to sleep. If you are in the middle of a stressful period, three cups a day or one cup right before bedtime will help you through.

The above quote is taken from a favourite, and easy to read, herbal book, The Backyard Medicine Chest - an herbal primer, by Douglas Schar. Valerian is described in the book as 'the Mother Teresa of the plant world for those suffering from stress'.
Herbalism can be confusing at first because many herbs have a range of beneficial ingredients, some of which can often be found in other herbs. But this book focuses on one common herb for each ailment, and gives an interesting discussion of it, with history, use and preparation.

Valerian flowers: The scent from valerian flowers is delightful, like a mild jasmine, and faintly musky. In the summer, as we walked past the plant, with its flowers at the top of eight-foot stalks, we wondered where the strangely pleasant smell was coming from.

Valerian flowers are said to be good for cutting and displaying in the house where they add their delightful scent.

Valerian root: This is the part of the plant used to make valerian tea.

Valerian root washed.

Valerian root dried.

Valerian hot chocolate

There's a delicious-sounding recipe for valerian hot chocolate in James Wong's Grow Your Own Drugs.

To make 3 cups requires:

3 tbsp fresh valerian root
3 tbsp fresh lemon balm leaves
3 tsp fresh lavender leaves
6 leaves and 3 heads from fresh passion flowers
peel of 1.1/2 oranges
900 ml full-fat milk
50g dark chocolate (min 50% cocoa solids)
dash of vanilla extract

1. Chop the top and bottom from the fresh valerian root. Add the valerian, lemon balm, lavender, passion flowers, orange peel and milk to a pan and gently heat for 5-10 minutes. Strain.

2. Pour the infused milk back into the pan, then add the dark chocolate and vanilla extract and stir until melted. Drink at once.

Fruit leather

Damson, apple, grape and fennel fruit leather.

This year, instead of simply drying the damsons as we did last year (see here), we made fruit leather - from damsons and from various combinations.

To make fruit leather, remove all stones, peel and core apples, then put the fruit into a blender and blend until it's as fine as you want it. Pour out onto an oven tray covered with clingfilm a 1/8" to 1/4" layer of the fruit pulp. (Be sure that all stones are removed. If you leave one it will be chopped in the blender into hard, sharp little pieces.)

Place in an oven on very low, about plate-warming temperature, and leave for 24 hours. Peel the drying pulp off the clingfilm and turn it over. Leave for another 12 hours.

Roll it up in the clingfilm and store in the fridge or freezer -

Varying the ingredients -

Apple, banana, honey and toasted oats.

Damson and liquorice, poured after blending soft liquorice and damsons.

Damson and liquorice dried.

Damson and liquorice cut with scissors into strips for eating.

There's more info on fruit leathers and a table of the suitability of various fruits here.

Garlic in goose fat

We had a good crop of garlic this year, from which we made garlic in goose fat.
This is simply peeled garlic cloves simmered until soft in goose fat.
The cooked cloves are taken out of the fat and placed in a jar, with goose fat added to cover them.
Great winter food, spread on toast, with a sprinkle of salt.

Pickled damsons

The damsons here will be ripe soon. Last year we made damson pickle and damson jam. We also experimented with drying the fruit, after removing the stones.

Dried damsons

We used a non-stick tray and a very low oven to dry the damsons and, a year on, the fruit is still good today. We have planted more stone fruit trees, and are starting to propagate various berry bushes, so we'll likely buy a dehydrator for the job in the future. This will be useful for drying herbs too.

The dried damsons can be reconstituted with boiling water and soaking for use in baking, but they're also good to pop in the mouth like sweets.

Damson pickle

This is the recipe we used for damson pickle. It's an old one, passed on by a local lady some years ago (we halved the quantities):

8 lbs damsons
6 lbs sugar
1/2 oz cloves
1/4 oz cinnamon
1 quart vinegar

First day
Take good ripe damsons and prick well.
Boil vinegar and sugar and spices together and pour over the damsons.

Second day
Pour off the liquid and boil it again. Pour over damsons.

Third day
Repeat process, and if the damsons are not soft, boil all together for a minute or two.

Eat straight away or leave for a month or more to mature. Pickled damsons are great with snacks, just as you'd use any pickle; and the liquid in the jar is delicious and fortifying to drink.

Damson jam

Damson jam is probably the tastiest fruit jam out. It has a lovely strong dark-fruit flavour.

We use the simple recipe of 4 lbs of damsons to 4 lbs of sugar and a 1/4 pint of water.

Boil it all up and stir. Squash the damsons against the side of the pan to remove the stones. Skim the stones off as they collect on the surface.

By the time you've removed all the stones, the jam will be about ready. You can check by seeing how the jam on the pile of stones has set.