Winter Solstice

We had a lovely evening with my parents at our house to celebrate the winter solstice and the returning of a stronger sun and longer days.

The menu kind of took on a life of its own and just "happened".

I had decided already to do a regular roast chicken meal with roasted veges and greens. However, it felt a little lacking and this is where I wanted to bring in a bit more of the Maori traditional food to honour Matariki.

So I got googling on cooking a Boil Up - otherwise known as Pork and Puha - and Doughboys - otherwise known as pumpkin dumplings. Not sure why they don't have more attractive names, but there ya go.

After googling some recipes, Simon was in charge of making the pumpkin dumplings while I got onto the boil up (although didn't have any puha in my garden so substituted in some spinach). That was the starter. Tasted good too! I did add flavouring/chicken stock though which wasn't in the recipe..and our one didn't have the tomatoes.

The main was the roast chicken meal with a dessert that Grampie made.

Some of the decorations the kids made to welcome the sun (and somewhere in my parenting I haven't told Danielle to not glue things on the walls and windows lol ;))

Winter solstice/Matariki preparations

We're all looking forward to having a wee family feast on Sunday night to mark the winter solstice. In NZ it also coincides closely with Matariki (the Maori New Year). My parents will be joining us and I can see it being the start of regular family tradition. The other celebration often had down-under is a mid-winter Christmas to try and get that winter/Christmas thing going on - it's not something our family has gotten into, so being intentional with celebrating the winter solstice is a lovely way to do something similar but more aligned with our family.

I have really been embracing bringing the wild foods into our every day meals. The vege garden seems to be in between for providing leafy greens at the moment - but not to worry, I have plenty of wild foods waiting for gathering. Most meals have been including:
Chickweed (a nourishing, strengthening food, helps nutrients to be absorbed and utilised, a good source of Vit C as well as other minerals and vitamins, and a wound/skin healer (including eye infections);
Sweet violet leaves (good for providing Vit A and Vit C as well as being nourishing for the immune system, urinary tract, reproductive system, lungs, nerves and digestion);
Cleavers (good for the lymphatic system)
Dandelions (are a digestive bitter that produces stomach acid help digest food, gets your blood and lymph system working smoothly, increases circulation, cuts down swelling and water retention, a good nutritious tonic).

Gotta stop reading and just take action!

This is the point I've got to with my herbal studies. I've been reading and reading and dabbling a little here and there, but have realised I just need to *do* it now.

Over the past 6mths I've been doing a little wild crafting, but haven't done much with it.

So, just in the past few days....

I've eaten wild foods with my lunch both days. I steamed up some chickweed, young dandelion greens (yay for getting to know this one intimately last spring so I could ID it immediately without flowers and from the many other look-alikes) along with some kale from my garden (even found some dandelions in my medicinal garden that will now be tended and looked after!). I then served it up on top of a baked potato with baked beans over the top.

That evening I then brewed up a pot of chamomile tea using the flowers I had gathered over summer.

Today, I made an omelette and cooked in some cleavers, chickweed and dandelion greens.

I also made up a pot of red clover infusion that I was able to have a couple of mugs of (I had been stuck on not owning a 1L (quart) canning jar but saw someone on a youtube using a coffee plunger, which worked out very well for pressing all the liquid from the flowers at the end too!). I only made a half batch to begin with which gave me 2 mugs worth.

So while I'm not really able to observe how each of the herbs will affect me due to not using them individually, it does feel good to just start including them in my daily routines until it becomes a bit more ordinary to do so.