Abigail Kimball

I've started a new class with the new school year: Herbal Studies. It contains a wide genre of homemade body products, natural remedies for various ailments, and what leaves are good for what thing when you are lost and surviving in the Alaskan forests. I'm using this blog as a journal for it so don't be surprised if one of my posts is, "Lamb's Ear: the Medieval Maxi Pad"(because it actually is!) Of course, we have a cute little binder to record all our fantastic findings; now that the whole family's into it we don't want our discoveries in scraps of paper under mom's desk! We've made some astounding discoveries already! For instance: half the weeds in your back yard are actually a natural Benadryl for that bee sting you just got while trying to extinguish the hive in your garage roof! However, let me warn you NOT to just go chewing anything you find growing out of the ground to use as a healing salve. There are some pretty poisonous

I made some amazing muffins today. The recipe made 12 and I tripled it. By the end of today, they were all gone but 4. Of course, I didn't follow the recipe exactly, which makes it better! The zucchini was locally grown, I used half whole wheat flour, and cut the amount of sugar in two. Since there were nut allergies in the house, I left out the walnuts. Other than that, I used mini chocolate chips instead of the enormous ones that burn your mouth off so you can't taste a thing.

Recently, I made shortbread to attract people to my mom's presentation for a group at church. Everybody had some type of snack at their table, but I have to admit we were one of the tables that got the most traffic even if it was just for the cookies! Anyway, the recipe was different from what I've seen before because it used brown sugar instead of just regular. I definitely improved the taste. Shortbread normally just 3 ingredients, and has a pretty simple process. Ahhh, I love those kinds of recipes... Obviously, from the picture you should be able to tell that it is pretty tasty. The simpler the better I say, but you can fancy it up a bit by dipping them in chocolate. After that, you can leave it plain or sprinkle it with nuts and, yes, sprinkles. Sprinkle it with sprinkles? Sounds funny but tastes splendid! One more thing I must mention, is that you can cut them in different shapes, or use a rotary cutter to make fancy edges like in the picture below: I,

Already, the school year has started and everybody is out and about in public places spreading germs like never before. My entire neighborhood is already sick, so now we are battling against it and allergies mixed together. Even though it's not quite the flu season yet, if your immune system isn't built up you will be fighting germs left and right at school and work. However, acting as if everybody is infested and washing your hands excessively isn't as fun as experimenting with teas and their healing powers (not that it should be replaced!!!) First off, there are some different ways to brew tea: Make your own tea bags (super fun!) You can do them fancy like in this video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WLImRRLujU or simple like in this one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_LDzCR_JWY  . Buy pre-made tea bags. Get a tea ball. Perfect for single cups made with loose tea. Look at the picture below. Another way is to use the coffee maker. "What!?" yo

One day as I was walking though a mall I found a booth selling 100% shea butter and essential oils. They were also selling whipped shea butter with some heavenly perfume added. The lady told me how to make it, so a few years later (today) I decided to try it. Shea butter is a nut, and has this very unique earthy smell which only mixes with specific scents (which I learned from experience!) When my grandma was in Africa she saw them scraping it out of the bowl like this: So later I researched and found that these were the best essential oils: lavender, frankincense, geranium, rosemary, rose, vanilla, lemongrass, jasmine, and sweet orange. Nevertheless, I would suggest testing a bit before making your whole batch have a smell you just don't like.  This is the shea butter that I buy, and I would suggest it to you because it is 100% shea butter, unprocessed and straight from Africa! When it comes out of the bucket it will look something like this: Whipped shea