I think my old stairs creak more when it's a cold morning than they do in warm weather. Another thing I love about my old farmhouse. I am enjoying my first cup of coffee early this morning, knowing that I won't be able to have real coffee for a year starting in about 12 days. (!) I have ordered myself an electric tea kettle for when I make my teas. I normally drink sleepy tea at night, but I'll have to switch to my herbal teas from my garden for night time. Catnip, lemon balm, spearmint, peppermint. I have roasted dandelion root for a coffee substitute for the morning. I also have a nice little stash of herbs for my morning teas that have lots of good vitamins and minerals. The electric tea kettles use less electricity than my stove top kettle. And it takes less time to boil water. I found an all glass one on Ebay so I don't have any plastic or aluminum leaching in to my water.
Yesterday was a seed saving day. Seeds are such powerful food sources.Think about some of the super foods out there being sold right now. Chia seeds, flax seed, quinoa, sunflower seeds, and any seed you can eat as sprouts are so high in the good stuff, you probably could live on them. Yesterday, I focused on collecting whatever seed I have available to me in the garden.
I started with my amaranth. Amaranth is one of the oldest cultivated grains, being used by the Aztecs and Native American People for a very long time. Amaranth contains about 28 grams of protein per cup and has calcium, loads of fiber, phytosterols which lower cholesterol, and lysine that helps your body absorb calcium and helps your body metabolize fatty acids into energy. The seeds or "grains" are edible and so are the leaves.
Being a very lazy gardener, amaranth is one of my very favorite plants because it is beautiful, colorful, easy to grow and plants itself in my garden year after year. Sort of like a weed.
I planted amaranth about 5 or 6 years ago from seeds I bought from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, and that first year, I let the seeds dry and fall where they wanted. Now, every year, the very distinctive red seedlings emerge from the ground as soon as things warm up. I can leave them where they are, or dig them up and move them where I want them. They are happy in just about any soil, it seems and they grow taller than me.
There are all sorts of different colors and shapes of amaranth, and all edible. I had the burnt orange for awhile and that was really pretty in the fall. I only ended up with one of those this year and I let the seeds drop so I'll have more next year.
The leaves are great picked small for salads and I've used them in smoothies. The smaller leaves are really dark in color. You can also cook them as a green. The seeds can be eaten raw, added to smoothies, cooked like a cereal grain or sprouted.
To collect the seeds all I did was shake them into a paper bag, pour that into a shallow dish and wait for the wind to blow away the hulls. Easy.
Until tomorrow...
Love!!!! <3
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