How To & DIY
How to Make a Botanical Tea Infusion
Whether you want to relax, indulge or invigorate your senses, try adding botanicals to transform your next cup of tea. Here are three infusion ideas for black, chamomile and white teas: Peppermint Black Tea For an invigorating morning, try blending 1/2 teaspoon peppermint with black tea leaves.
Three Simple Ways to be Merry this Holiday Season
The holidays don’t have to be an overwhelming time of to-dos and compromises. Do it differently this year.
Homemade Herbal Sodas
Whether you call it pop, soda or a soft drink, today’s popular sweetened carbonated beverages aren’t what they started out to be. Traditional recipes for drinks like root beer, vanilla cream soda and cherry and ginger ales were made from extracts of flavorful botanicals and were often offered in pharmacies for their reputed health benefits.
DIY Spice Blends
Gift baskets are popular presents because they are useful and easy to give, but they also can be predictable. You can do much better than putting together the ubiquitous basket of fruit, nuts and preserves or soup, cake and cookie mixes in jars for your food-loving friends.
Low Salt Cooking: Hold the Salt, Pass the Spices!
Most of us consume about 3,400 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day — well above the recommended intake of no more than 2,300 milligrams daily. (There are 2,000 milligrams per teaspoon,.
The Perfect Pizza
Is pizza your favorite food? You're not alone. Americans eat 100 acres of pizza daily! (The favorite topping is pepperoni, and the least favorite is anchovies.
Enhance your Diet with Chia Seeds
Creative cooks looking for healthy solutions are discovering all kinds of ways to use chia seeds. Their subtle nutty flavor works well in sweet or savory dishes, and, unlike flax seeds, chia seeds don't need to be ground before eaten.
DIY Flax Seed and Lavender Neck Pillows
You can make your own DIY flax seed and lavender neck pillow in less than an hour. Flax seed is the ideal filler because it's a good heft—comforting but not too heavy—and it holds heat well (thanks to the oil content in each seed), even after heating and reheating many times.
Dyeing Easter Eggs Naturally
If you're decorating eggs in celebration this Easter, engage nature in the process this year and avoid synthetic dyes. Ingredients like herbs and spices offer an endless variety of hues for dyeing eggs -- from the soft purple shades of hibiscus to the rich gold tones of turmeric.
Herbal Vinegars
Herbal vinegars are easy to make and versatile. Use them in the kitchen in everything from dressings to desserts, as well as outside the kitchen for toiletries and cleaning.
