Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Calendula, a healer and a spice of life











Pics by me

I have , inspired by Annemartha Borgen ,been growing a lot of calendula flowers this year, and are now able to harvest the flowers and drying them to make a spice.
It looks absolutely fantastic , both in the garden and on the shelf it is a pleasure for the eye . And now I have to see for myself if it it as wonderful in food as mrs Borgen is writing in her book.
From her point of view, calendula makes everything taste so much better by bringing out  the taste of what ever you are cooking.  She even say its much better with calendula than  safran in the famous bouillabaisse...and at the same time,of course colors the food a golden yellow, like safran would.

Now I think this all sound very exciting and are going have a go , and of course it makes it even more interesting knowing that internal use of calendula acts as a tonic and are of great benefit to the arteries and veins , and that the Arabs like to feed them to their  swift horses.
So from all this ,I gather that I have nothing to loose ,only all to win by harvest my calendula flowers and savoring them for  the dark winter months.

I dry the flower petals in the oven on 40 degrees celsius for 14 hours with the door slightly open.
The best is to store in clean, dark glasses with a tight lid on.