Blog - Our Heritage of Health

Cinnamon Maple Peach Jam Recipe

The changing season between late summer and early fall always gets me in the mood for more fall-ish flavors and for the old-fashioned tradition of putting up the harvest by making preserves. And this cinnamon maple peach jam recipe is one that I think fits perfectly into the change of seasons because of the fresh summer peach flavor and the hint of warm cinnamon spice and maple syrup that feel more like fall.

This recipe would be delicious spread over warm, freshly-baked bread or rolls, but, as I can attest, it’s also perfect to eat straight from the jar by the spoonful. And it’s a pretty adaptable recipe, too, because you can double or triple the recipe if you have more peaches, and you can adjust the amounts of maple syrup and sugar, too, if you want it to be more or less sweet or to have more or less maple flavor.

Quick and Easy Ground Beef Stir-Fry Recipe

On busy nights when I don’t have a lot of time to cook but I still want a homemade meal, this quick and easy ground beef stir-fry recipe is one of my go-to meals because it’s very simple to make and it’s very customizable based on whatever ingredients you like and have on hand.

The ground beef in the recipe cooks pretty quickly, and using shredded carrots rather than bigger pieces of chopped carrots cuts down on the cooking time quite a bit . And since the rice can cook in a separate pan at the same time that the other ingredients are cooking, you can multitask to prepare everything all at one time.

I kept this basic recipe very simple with just ground beef, rice, carrots, Swiss chard, and herbs and spices, but you could add in whatever ingredients are your favorites or use different vegetables at different times of the year based on what’s in season where you live.

How to Grow Your Own Saffron

Of all of the herbs and spices in the spice aisle at the grocery store, saffron is almost always the most expensive one you can find. Saffron’s high price tag makes it a special occasion spice rather than an everyday spice for many people. But since saffron actually comes from the inside of crocus flowers, it’s possible to grow your own saffron for a much, much cheaper price than you could ever buy saffron at the store.

I decided to try growing my own saffron last year, and I was pleasantly surprised by how easy and simple the process was and by how much more economical it was than buying store bought saffron. Sometimes growing your own food ends up not really being much cheaper than just buying food at the grocery store, but in this case it’s definitely much cheaper.

Over 30 Sourdough Recipes to Make with a Sourdough Starter

If you’ve ever made your own sourdough starter from wild yeast for making homemade sourdough bread you’ve probably found yourself wondering what else you can use it for besides just bread. And if you’ve been maintaining a sourdough starter for any length of time, then you know that it can multiply pretty quickly when you feed it and you can end up with a lot of extra. But rather than just throwing away the extra sourdough starter, it’s nice to be able to use it to bake with, so I decided to gather up a big list of ideas for sourdough recipes to make with a sourdough starter.

Old-Fashioned Herbal Hair Rinse for Shiny Hair

If you’ve ever tried to use store bought shine-boosting serums, you’ve probably found that they tend to be on the pricier side and that they can also turn your hair into a sticky, greasy mess if you use too much. That’s why I love using this really simple and natural herbal hair rinse because it gives your hair a nice shine without weighing it down like using too much of a serum can do.

I also love the fact that this herbal hair rinse recipe can be as simple as just one ingredient (or two or three if you want to add in some optional additional ingredients.) If you look at the ingredients list of any store bought shine serum, you’ll probably see a dozen or more ingredients, many of which are usually hard-to-pronounce chemicals. But this recipe is completely natural and good for your hair too.

The Best Online Sources for Heirloom Seeds

Heirloom seeds are becoming increasingly more popular, but even so, they can often be difficult to find in garden centers and other places that sell gardening supplies and seeds. And even if you are able to find a few heirloom seeds, the selection is usually nowhere near as large as what you can find when you shop online. So today I wanted to share a few of my favorite online stores that I consider to be the best online sources for heirloom seeds.

How to Make Your Own Maple Syrup – Part 2: Boiling Down the Sap

If you have a few backyard maple trees and you live in a climate where it’s below freezing at night and above freezing during the day time, then it’s really quite simple to make your own maple syrup and boil down the sap into delicious syrup that you can drizzle over pancakes or use in cooking and baking.

In my last post I talked about all of the things involved in preparing for sugaring off, including: identifying trees, choosing the right time and place to tap the trees, drilling the hole, and setting up the taps and collection containers for the sap. If you haven’t read that post already, you can find it here: How to Make Homemade Maple Syrup – Part 1: Tapping Your Trees.

Today, we’ll talk about the rest of the steps we need to take in order to be able to get from watery sap to sweet maple syrup.