The lemon tree is packed with ripe, juicy fruit and I'm on a lemon streak! This is really good - not sicky sweet like the store brands. Using the raw turbinado cane sugar gives it a nice color.
Lemon Gelatin
3/4 cup organic sugar
2 envelopes gelatin
1 2/3 cups cold water
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
Mix the sugar with the gelatin in a sauce pan. Add the water and bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Add the lemon juice. Pour into a bowl or mold and refrigerate until firm.
I also make gelatin from apple juice/cider:
Soften 1 package of gelatin in 1/4 cup water. Add 1/2 cup boiling water and stir until dissolved. Add 1 1/4 cup apple juice/cider and pour into a bowl or mold. Refrigerate until firm.
You can also add spices or grated ginger with the juice.
Oh joy - it's that time of the year when GI tract viruses are showing up and after avoiding one for over 10 years, I got hit good. It was bad enough trying to find gluten free medications and remedies, but now with adding so many allergies, especially the corn one, it's nearly impossible! Here's what I came up with:
For nausea:
Ginger syrup from the candied ginger recipe. A spoonful in a cup of warm water taken in small sips worked well for helping to tamp down the nausea.
For diarrhea:
Immodium caplets have cornstarch in them - it's out. The CVS and Walgreen brand soft gelcaps have glycerin, which can be made from corn, and blue dye in the softcaps which ups my histamine response, and they can't be opened up like regular capsules. If it was that or the ER, I was going to try them - however, homemade broth and white rice every couple hours worked. Rice can be great for stopping one up!
For electrolyte replacement:
I usually drink coconut water for this, but I couldn't take the sweetness this time. Further into the illness than I should have, I finally tried this homemade drink that worked like a miracle! If I'd been sipping it all along, I don't think I would've had the problems with borderline dehydration that I did. The recipe calls for 2 - 3 fresh lemons - I used two large ones from our tree and it was a little lemony at the time. They made 2/3 cup of lemon juice, so I think I would use 1/2 cup for a flu drink. Now that I'm better, though, it tastes great with that much lemon juice!
Wouldn't you know it! I was all geared up for corn syrup free candy making this Christmas .... and after no rain since September, it's been raining. And the humidity is up too high - I proved it to myself with a disastrous batch of Seafoam. However, these candied gingers turned out great! And you end up with quite a bit of ginger syrup that makes a great ginger ale (mixed with seltzer water). It's also yummy over ice cream and I'm thinking it'd work really well in some baked goods recipes I have in mind.
There are several things that will make this turn out really good - find the freshest ginger you can (Asian markets are often a good place to start), cut the ginger as thin as you can and in very small pieces (much smaller than the ones in the photo), and look at the grain in your ginger. Yes, ginger has a grain that can be tough to cut across. I cut my larger pieces against the grain and then made my small slices with the grain - much easier. This is very hot at first, but it mellows after a few days in an airtight container.
Candied Ginger
1 cup peeled fresh ginger cut into very thin, small pieces
3 cups organic sugar
3 cups water
about 1/2 cup organic sugar
In a non-reactive pan, combine the water and raw sugar and heat over medium heat until dissolved. Add ginger. Bring to a simmer and cook for 45 - 50 minutes - until the ginger is tender. Spread the white sugar over the bottom of a cake pan or pie plate. Strain out the ginger and add to the additional sugar, stirring to coat and separate the pieces. Leave out on the counter until dry and hard. Separate the pieces and store in an airtight container.
I don't know if Trader Joe's canned green olives (ingredients are only olives, water, and sea salt) are lower in histamines than the usual cured olives with vinegar, but I've been able to eat 4 to 5 at a time once a week with no apparent problems. They're pretty bland by themselves, but delicious marinated in this recipe!
Marinated Green Olives
1 can plain green olives (like the Trader Joe's ones I mention above), rinsed
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 Tablespoons white wine
1 teaspoon crushed fennel seed
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt
a few grinds of pepper
1 small red sweet pepper cut into matchsticks
slivered almonds
Combine olive oil, lemon juice, wine, fennel, salt, and pepper and whisk well. Stuff olives with almond slivers. Add olives and sweet red pepper to the marinade, combine well, and refrigerate for a few hours.
