Now I will share with you unusual recipes from the gifts of the forest. If you take care of your health, then it will have to be a must. We collect needles every summer. it can be taken in different ways: spruce, pine, juniper, etc. It can be simply frozen or dried, or it can be made from delicious delicacies, pine sugar, honey. In our family, such dishes have been passed down from generation to generation with love and trepidation for a long time.
Now it is not too late to start collecting needles. Of course, you are late for collecting the cones, since they need young soft ones. But spruce shoots can be found. They are very sour with a characteristic new year smell and absolutely no bitterness. The older they get, the more they get a bad taste.
New Year's lemonade
Young spruce needles (sour) need to be poured into a blender, add mint, lemon balm, lemon and clean water there. Beat at high speeds, filter through a sieve or cloth, soften the taste with honey and enjoy. I assure you, you have not tasted a drink tastier.
Pleasant soft taste and amazing aroma transferring to some kind of fairy tale, far from reality.
Pine needles honey
We collect young pine candles in the spring (May). We'll need them to cook coniferous honey. In fact, it is a thick and rich syrup with a forest flavor and aroma. It can be used in different ways: in tea, lemonades, desserts, pancakes in the morning to water. You need to cook it like a simple syrup with the addition of ground needles and candles. Some of them can be left unchanged.
Such honey not only tastes good, but also heals. It is used for colds, loss of strength, physical strain. A universal thing, I tell you.
Pine cone jam
Young cones should be taken in May. An incredibly rich and slightly tarry jam. It tastes a little bitter, the cones are completely boiled down and can be eaten. The consistency is unusual only because the jam is made from an unusual ingredient. If you cook it, you can enjoy its unusual aroma and taste all winter.
Cook the jam like a standard apple jam. But instead of the usual fruits, we use cones. One difference, we cut apples and fill them with sugar overnight. You do not need to do this with cones, but you will have to drip a little water and cook in it.
Spruce sugar (flavored)
A very unusual sweetness. But if you do it, you will not regret it. Sugar is aromatic and bright. Adding a spoonful of such sugar to tea is interesting, tasty, unusual and attractive!
How to cook? Yes, very simple! A couple of slices of lemon, a little mint, a handful of young spruce shoots, a few pine candles put in a blender and grind well. Now you need to grind the original mixture with the simplest sugar to a slightly damp state and put it in jars under a nylon lid. Keep refrigerated. The amount of sugar can be taken by eye. if you want a richer taste, then take less in relation to other ingredients, and if you need a less pronounced taste, then you need to use more sugar.
Needle tea
The tea will turn out to be unusual, rich without the obvious taste of the Christmas tree. This one is just an amazing find! The tea needs to be fermented. if this procedure is avoided, then we get a banal compote from Christmas tree needles.
Fermentation is a tricky process, but worth it. How to carry it out? We collect spruce needles and dry a little, spend three hours on this, no more. After that, you need to scroll the green mass through a meat grinder or crush it well with your palms (as if grinding the needles). We take a saucepan with a lid, transfer the fragrant mass into it and close it with a lid. Now you need to put it in a warm, but not hot place. Fermentation takes up to two days, but each time is different. therefore, it is necessary to monitor the smell. As you will see, the herbal smell began to go away and the sweetish fruity smell began to mix. then you can take out the needles and dry them. drying in the sun is not recommended, it is done in the shade, in an oven with an open door or in special dryers.
Stock up on the gifts of the forest and be healthy!
