Enjoying Summer Herb(s)

Oh I totally lucked out!  Just wanted to boast a bit about my good fortune.  Two people in my life - my former neighbor Michelle, and Jason - gave me a large amount of delicious herbs that I dried over the past few weeks.  I have lemon balm, kaffir lime, rosemary, spearmint, oregano, lemon thyme, and spearmint.  

I started drying the herbs by being all fancy - I tied them in small bundles and tacked them to my bulletin board.  Sadly I ran out of string (I'd used it all making pea trellises and candle wicks).  So, I ended up just setting them in paper bags by my sliding glass window in the sun.  They dried up very nicely.

Though I am ok with some stems in my tea, I aimed for getting mostly leaves crushed up and into the jars.  I did so by rolling the bundles in my hands over newspaper on my kitchen floor.  It made quite a mess, but it I got a ton of product.  Well...not oregano.  That went straight into dinner.

Be sure to store your herbs in dry containers so they won't mold.  You have to make sure they are DRY before you do that.  My herbs sat out for 3 weeks before I put them up.  They look really pretty don't they?

Homemade Chai

Before moving to Oregon I stayed with Jason in his place in Moab while he finished up some earth building projects. His roommate made up chai from scratch and it was AMAZING!!! Here is his recipe and my thoughts as I sit here and enjoy a cup of my first batch.

4 qt saucepan full of water
2-3 T cardamom pods
3-4 T fresh chopped ginger
1 t black pepper corns
1 nutmeg seed (grind in coffee grinder with black pepper corns)
1/2 to 1 t cloves (the more you put in the more your tongue goes numb)
4 small cinnamon sticks

Boil that down slowly til about 2/3rd water left in pot, then add milk of your choice to fill the pot back up again, and lightly boil down about 1/2 inch or so. Steep in roiboos or tea of your choice, strain into cup, add honey to taste, and serve (if you use black tea then steep in each individual cup as it will turn bitter in the pot).

If you like spice this chai is amazing. It has a great bite due to the ginger and black peppercorns. I would halve the peppercorns and double the clove if you like a sweeter tone. I used soymilk in my brew, but it will work with any kind of milk. I also did not have a nutmeg seed and had to go with pre-ground nutmeg which worked just fine. If you think your chai is not strong enough you can always cook it down more or store it with the spices in. When you heat it up each time it will steep further.


I got all of my ingredients in bulk from the First Alternative Natural Foods Co-op here in Corvallis which keeps the cost of the spices much lower than if you were purchasing them in containers. In order to keep my chai spices organized I put all of the baggies into a large mason jar and taped the recipe to the outside.


You can also save the spices from one pot and make another batch. Just freshen it up with a a few bits of each ingredient and make a slightly smaller amount.

Kombucha Culture from the Bottle

Whenever I get settled in to a new place I start up a new batch of kombucha. If you don't know what kombucha is, the short answer is that it is a fermented tea that is a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. The long answer includes that it came from Russia, includes many beneficial probiotics and acids, is meant to be very healthy for the digestive system, and is outlined in way too many words on wikipedia.

I usually find someone I know who has a scoby (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) so that I can get myself started. That usually requires I spend some time meeting people and finding someone who actually brews kombucha, OR putting up some kind of cute ad at the local food co-op. Now I love getting to know health-conscious hippie types as much as the next granola foodie, but I really wanted to get my culture rolling lest it take me months to get the show on the road.

So instead of hunting down my own viscous little colony I am trying something suggested by my friend - starting my kombucha from a commercially bottled brand. It will take longer to get going, but should produce the same results as using a scoby.

I chose to use High Country Kombucha Original because it is one of my favorites. It is also one of the few commercially bottled kombucha brands that I can find without juices added. I spoke with a friend who has started her culture from this brand, and she suggested the following recipe:

1 bottle of Original High Country Kombucha (or another plain variety)
3-4 liters of water
2-3 tablespoons of organic black tea
1 cup of raw sugar

Set out the bottle of kombucha to reach room temperature. Boil the water and pour into a sterilized stainless steel or glass (no plastic!) container. Steep the tea in the water until the desired strength and then remove. Pour in the sugar and let it dissolve. Let the sweetened tea sit out until it reaches room temperature, then pour in the bottled kombucha. Cover your container with a clean cloth and place somewhere warm where there is no direct sunlight. The kombucha should start to culture as soon as you
put it in, but be patient with the results as this method can take up to a month.

There are many ways you can drink kombucha. Some people start a new batch when it gets to their desired level of fermentation, and put the finished product in the fridge. Others will engage in a more continuous fermentation, adding more ingredients and pulling out kombucha as needed. Some people drink it straight at room temperature, others like to chill it. You can also add it to juice or sweeten it with a little sugar (but do so just before you are going to drink it, if you put sugar in it and put it away you will restart fermentation).

When Jason and I were in New Zealand we stayed with a couple who were homesteading and teaching wwoofers to build cob houses. Every morning we met in the kitchen and stood around the wood-fired cookstove with wine glasses filled with kombucha, hot water, and blackcurrant syrup. We toasted the start of each day before settling in for a delicious breakfast of pog.

Beyond the health benefits of kombucha I definitely cling to this bit of nostalgia when I partake in kombucha today. I drink kombucha for health, for comfort, for taste, and for fun. I have no intention of telling you that you SHOULD drink it, but I recommend it if you like sour flavors and believe in the benefit of consuming fermented foods.

I will let you know how my commercially-bottled culture turns out!