You know the old saying....
It's spot on! Make your own preventative medicine and save yourself days or even weeks of misery!
Elderberry syrup is easy to make and well worth any expense on ingredients!
I don't really measure, but if I had to estimate, here's how I did mine:
6 Cups of water
3 Cups of dried elderberries
1 inch of grated ginger
6-10 whole cloves
1 Cup of sugar (any kind, but I used coconut sugar this time)
2 Cinnamon sticks
Honey (to your liking, but I'd say at least 1 cup)
Simmer the berries in the water until reduced by almost half.
Strain the berries in a sieve and then when cool enough, in a cheesecloth or old tshirt, squeeze as much of the liquid you can possibly get out of the rest.
When the liquid has cooled to at least 110 degrees, add the honey. You don't want to kill the enzymes in the honey!
Store in the fridge. It should last a good long time. Take a tablespoon or two a day!
*You may also skip the sugar part and just use honey.
Fire Cider!
Fire Cider is an old folk remedy of a natural immune booster.
From the page of one of the most famous herbalists and Matriarch, Rosemary Gladstar;
" A spicy hot deliciously sweet vinegar tonic, Fire Cider was first concocted in the kitchen at the California School of Herbal Studies in the early 1980's. ... The idea was to bring medicinal herbalism back into people's kitchens, as part of their food and as a way of being, not just for medicinal purposes. "
See Rosemary Gladstar's story on preserving the history of FREE Fire Cider.
You can make the traditional recipe from Rosemary or you can tweak it to your own liking. It's all good!
In the large picture below, I made 2 gallons of regular ingredients. The middle jar is a gallon with added hot chili powder and the half gallon jar on the right is the stash leftover from 2 years ago! That's right, I made 2 gallons using the same jar on the seasoned stash I made 2 years ago and it lasted all that time. I gave some away to those interested along the way and still had enough left.
Our son loves his mixed with pickle juice or vegetable juice in a shot glass. One per day is enough to boost your immunity!
Below is a list of ingredients I use in mine:
Horseradish
Onions
Garlic
Citrus
Ginger
Cinnamon sticks
Tumeric powder
Hot chili flakes or chopped peppers (optional)
Apple Cider Vinegar (organic raw with mother is best, but distilled/regular is fine too)
I do large batches once per year and leave it in the pantry. It doesn't go bad because of the vinegar. I add my honey as needed or when putting into smaller jars for the kitchen.
I used a food processor to shred the horseradish to get as much surface area for the vinegar to draw all of the goodness out. (and the fact that it was making me cry doing it by hand!)
Leave everything to infuse for 4-6 weeks. (Can go 2 weeks if you prefer)
Strain and add honey to the liquid to your liking.
*Get your kids involved! They will try more things if they had a hand in creating it!
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