Welcome Spring!!!

Just a few spring flowers to brighten you day! Welcome to spring! Some lovely art photos by some wonderful photographers... and even me. No matter the weather where you are, take a moment and go outside to welcome in the coming of the sun.

Beautiful Yorkshire in Glorious Technicolor by Yorkshire Sam

Middleton Place

Bleeding Hearts in my front yard last year

 Welcome Spring. May you bring us some much 

needed warmth and sunshine!

Honey of a Time... With Infused Honey

It's been a hectic past few months. Between Super Storm Sandy clean up and the Holiday season, life has seemed to pass by in a blur. Now that we've welcomed in 2013, I've had a little time to catch up on some of my herbal chores. Of course these aren't really chores at all. They are the favored tasks that you reward yourself with when all the rest has been done. What have I been doing? Oh, how sweet a task it is. I've been decanting and setting up my herbal infused honeys.

The sweetness and health benefits of honey are well documented. Whether you're using honey in your skin care, food or for your health, you can give it a boost with some herbal input. And it is so very, very easy.

Ginger swimming in honey.

What You'll Need:

• Clean mason jar/s
• Honey (my favorite is Herberstville Honey. Try to use local honey to aid with allergy immunity building)
• Your favorite fresh or dried herbs. Personally, I prefer using dried, except for roses. Less chance of moisture getting into the honey and causing problems such as mold or fermentation. Of course, fermentation could lead to an interesting mead, but that's another story for another day.

Make sure your mason jar is clean. Run it through the dishwasher or submerge in water and boil for a few minutes. Make sure the jar is thoroughly dried before using.

Loosely fill the jar to about two thirds full with your favorite herb, spice or combination.

Vanilla beans soaking in honey.

Pour the honey into the jar to cover the herbs. Stir with a knife or something long to remove all the air pockets. Top off with some more honey.

Cover tightly and put in a sunny windowsill or on a shelf you check fairly often.

Every few days turn the jar over to circulate the honey and herbs. Let the jar sit for at least two weeks or longer. The longer it sits, the stronger the infusion will be.

I just decanted a cinnamon infused honey that had been steeping for almost a year. I will admit that I only flip or check the jars every month or so when I'm letting it set up for that long a time.  It's divine! So extraordinarily yummy on waffles.

Here are some herb or spice combinations to try:

Honey dripping from vanilla sooo yummy!

• Rose petals. You can use fresh or dried petals (untreated, naturally). If you use fresh petals you don't even have to strain - just use eat the petals like a jam.
• Lavender
• Cinnamon - use just the sticks. Powder is OK, but it can make it gritty.
• Vanilla
• Chai - use cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, a few black peppercorns, a vanilla bean, cloves, allspice, star anise, or other chai flavoring that you like
• Peppermint
• Thyme
• Lemon Herbs - I like to combine lemon thyme, lemon balm, and lemon verbena
• Orange or lemon - use the peels cleaned of pith
• Rosemary
• Hot peppers - this is great in barbecue sauce or as a glaze for ribs or ham
• Ginger
• Calendula petals
• Elderberries - dried make a wonderful cough syrup

Use your imagination! These honeys are great to use in cooking or in teas, or straight off the spoon!

Of course, honey's not just great for your insides - it's fabulous for your outsides. I like using Calendula honey straight on cuts and scraps. We use ginger infused honey in our Orange Ginger Sugar Scrub.  Rose infused is used in our Rose n' Dew Sugar Scrub and the Rose 'n' Dew Face Spritz.

And if you want to ease away the stress of the past few months, try some Lavender honey in your tea - or in your bath!

Have fun making infused honeys. Let me know what herbal combinations you're trying, and I'll keep you posted of mine.

More Rosy Goodness

The roses continue to bloom brightly, encouraging the other flowers of the garden to wake up and blossom. The bees buzz happily, doing their little bee dance in the roses, then buzzing off to the hive to make honey. Summer, June, and National Rose Month, are carrying forward.

If you have made some rose honey, or are in the process of making it, I told you I'd give you a few suggestions for using those honey laden, still sweet smelling, rose petals that you might have strained from the infusing jar. These are two of my favorites.

Honey Candied Rose Petals

You can create these little treasures either in a dehydrator or in a low oven.

Oven method:
If you are using the oven, put a silicon mat or piece of parchment on a cookie sheet. Let the oven warm to no more than 200º, then turn it off. Put the cookie sheet in the oven for 10 minutes. Remove and, if you'd like, sprinkle the roses with sugar (white or colored sugar work best). Return to the oven for about 20 minutes. Test them to see if they are drying. Take them out of the oven and let them cool completely. You can put them in the refrigerator to help speed the process.

The dehydrator method is done much the same way, and it's the method I prefer. Spread the petal out on one of the fruit leather sheets. If you don't have one, put some wax paper or parchment on the regular rack. Set the dehydrator for the lowest setting. Let dehydrate for about 1 hour, then test for dryness.

Store these rosy treats in an air tight container, with layers separated by wax paper, and refrigerate. They'll keep for up to 3 months. You can also freeze them. Use them as a snack, or as decorations for cakes and cupcakes, or to float in tea or punch.

Honey Rose Face Toner

Put all of the honey macerated rose petals into a medium pot. Cover with filtered or distilled water so that there is at least 3 inches of water above the petals. Cover and simmer on the lowest setting for about 20 minutes. Remove the lid and simmer for another 10 minutes, making sure that the water doesn't get so low the petals burn. It should be a very low simmer, just warming the liquid. Turn the heat off and let it sit until completely cooled. Strain the liquid into a bottle, making sure to squeeze out every bit of liquid from the petals that you can. (I use a potato ricer lined with cheese cloth to squish everything out). Store in the refrigerator. This will keep for 6 months or longer.

I use this as a delightfully refreshing toner and moisturizer. It's wonderful in the summer - cool, fragrant, softening and soothing. It feels particularly nice on sunburned skin.


Roses give us so much - beauty, fragrance, health and with that a little happiness. Stop by again soon and I'll tell you about some of the other wonders roses have to offer.

How to make a Fruitilicious Frappe

March 2009 Indie Beauty Tag Party
Thanks to Debbie at Soapy Love Daily Ditties for the tag!

Sometimes, when I'm cooking, my mind starts to wonder. I was making one of my favorite smoothies for a quick breakfast and started thinking about one of the first face masks I ever made for myself. It was quick and easy and fresh from my fridge. It's a great little treat that will get your mind set for spring, and your face feeling smooth and fresh. And it's darn tasty too, but more about that later.

Fruitilicious Frappe
You'll need:
3 ripe strawberries
1 or two small pieces of pineapple
1 teaspoon honey
3 tablespoons (approximately) of plain yogurt


Stem the strawberries. Put the strawberries and the pineapple into a bowl.

Puree with a stick blender until smooth.

Drizzle in the honey and hit it again with the blender.

Add the yogurt. Change to the whip attachment and whip the mixture until smooth. (You can also use a regular blender)

Take a small amount of the mixture and smooth onto your face. Start at the neck and work upwards. You should apply a light layer all over your face, avoiding the eye area. Let it sit for about 10 minutes, then rinse with cool water.

You can follow with your favorite toner, although I just like to enjoy the fragrance for a while.

Cover and refrigerate the leftovers. It will last in there for 3 or 4 days. If you'd like it a little thicker, you can add a little cornstarch with the yogurt, or fold into an egg white that has been whipped to a stiff peak.

This easy face mask is packed with power:

• Pineapples contain bromelain, an enzyme which will help cleanse and exfoliate your skin. It's also has anti-inflammatory properties.
• Strawberries contain salicylic acid which will also help remove dead skin cells, as well as reducing pore size and redness. It's also an antioxidant.
• Yogurt will help soothe, cleanse and soften your skin.
• Honey - one of my favorite ingredients - is an all around wonder that moisturizes, is an antioxidant, antiviral, anti fungal, antibacterial, and filled with vitamins and minerals.

Even though you can refrigerate this and keep it for a few days, the very best part of this Fruitilicious Frappe - what you don't use on your face you can eat!

Want some more how to tips and cool information? Stop over at Dr. Flower's Handmade Soap. It's the Indie Beauty Networks' Blog Tag Party - and you're invited!

Have a Little Honey, Honey, it's National Honey Month!

As you may have gathered from our previous post about honey - which you can find here
- we're a little sweet on honey. What's not to love!? Honey is a natural sweet treat that's nourishing for your outside as well as your inside.

In celebration of National Honey Month, here are two honey based recipes to get you venturing into the wonderful world of honey.

For your outside:

Honey Hair Shine
Honey's softening power will keep your hair soft and shiny.

5 cups of warm water
2 teaspoons of light honey
Optional: a squeeze of lemon juice, strawberry, or a few teaspoons of chamomile tea

Stir the honey into the warm water. Add option of your choice. After shampooing, pour the mixture through your hair. Don't rinse, just dry and style as usual. Not only will your hair be soft and shiny, it will smell wonderful, too!

For your inside:

JP's Glazed Carrots
This is a family favorite - particularly my son's. He started making them with his grandmother when he was about 5 (he's now 25).

Carrots:
2 pounds baby carrots
water to cover

Glaze:
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup pineapple juice
4 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
Optional: just a pinch of hot pepper flakes or a dash of hot sauce.

Directions

Carrots:
Cook to carrots in the water until just fork tender but still firm. Don't over cook them or they'll be mushy. Drain carrots and return to put.

Glaze:
Set heat to low and add the butter to the carrots, . Add honey, brown sugar, and pineapple juice. Stir until well combined. Turn up the heat to medium when sugar has dissolved. Let simmer in the glaze until the liquid cooks down and thickens (usually about 5 to 7 minutes).

Place into a bowl, toss the option of your choice, if you'd like. The glaze with thicken slightly as it cools. Yum!

For the best in local honey, check out Herbertsville Honey or E&M Gold. They have wonderful information, terrific products, and are great people.

Have a little honey every day and celebrate the sweetness of National Honey Month.

The Happiness of Honey...

Bees are amazing little creatures. It always makes me happy to see them buzzing around my garden, investigating all the flowers. They do so much for us, too. They pollinate our plants, giving us fruits and vegetables. The wax from hives has a myriad of uses, including use in candles and skin care products. And of course, there's honey. It's used as a sweetener in teas and recipes, it's filled with vitamins and minerals that help with digestion, helps battle allergies, has anti-inflammatory properties that help soothe sore throats, and is generally yummy.

Honey has been a boon to human kind for hundred of years. It has wound healing

properties, which made it an important part of medicine for centuries. As an antibacterial, it helps to heal burns quickly, depriving bacteria of moisture while aiding the healthy skin to regenerate.

Honey is an important part of our products for all these reasons, and so much more.

Honey Pumpkin Face Mask combines this buzzy golden treasure with the punch pumpkin. Without giving you that over tightened feeling, this mask adds elasticity, removes dead skin cells and softens your skin, giving you that honey-kissed glow.

Sweetest Kisses Lip Balm uses honey for it's yumminess and softening ability, so your lips are smooth, soft and sweet for the kissing.

Honey Rose Bath Vinegar creates a magical bath that is fabulous for your skin. Vinegar balances your skins pH, and honey softens and helps you heal.

We go through a lot of honey at Celtic Chairde, and we're always trying to create more ways use this gift of nature. We'll keep you posted of our progress, but if you'd like to find out more about honey - or if you'd like to buy some locally grown honey, you can check out E&M Gold or Herbertsville Honey. These are two terrific local honey producers.

And remember to take care with bees. There have been problems the past few years with the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder. There are many factors that are still be considered as possible reasons for the loss of our little buzzy friends. While it's being studies, the one thing we can do is let honey bees do their job around our gardens without disturbing them. After all, they help bring us fruits and flowers and that wonderful honey.

Thanks, honey.