Alternative Pantry

Here is a list of those items thatI already keep and intend tokeep in my pantry which more often or not are actually used in The Still Room area of the house but some of the items are used in both The Kitchen and The Still Room.

Nuts

Beeswax - chat up your local beekeeper and make use of beeswax for making your own polishes and also for using as a thickener in home made ointments.

Honey - can be used as a sweetner in home made teas, and cooking and baking; as an antibiotic in its own right to help fight infections both colds and cuts and wounds.

Dried nasturtiums

Dried Rose Petals for teas and for decorating cakes, pot pourri and home made perfumes.

Dried Violets for decorating iced cakes and for incorporating within ice cream, pot pourris.

Dried Linden Leaves for use in tea

Dried Pot Marigold leaves - poor mans saffron, broth posies,used in rice; a conserve can be made with fresh petals. Marigold is extremely soothing and can be used in home made salves and creams to help inflamed skin such as excema and also as a wash when a child has chicken pox or measles.

Beech leaves use fresh; beech leaf liqueur

Dried Chammomile; for lightning hair, used in a tea as it has mildly sedative qualities. Also can be used in pot pourris

Dried Mint used as a tea

Dried Nettles used as a tea,

Dried Elderflowers can be used to make wine, used in home made bodycare products including hand creams. Also can be used to flavour sugar

Dried Hibiscus Flowers/Sorrell, teas and jellies

Dried Lavender can be used to flavour sugar, in pot pourris, lavender sachets/bags, cordials

Dried mixed flower petals for pot pourri

Crystallised flowers i.e. primroses, violets rose petals

Angelica candied and preserved to decorate cakes. Macerated in spirit to make a liqueur with a difference.

Ginger - dried and/or fresh used to flavour foods; can be stored in sherry to keep long term and the liquid used in stir fries; candied to make stem ginger in syrup, dried to use in cake mixtures and home made chinese meals.

Dried Rosehips to be used in wines and also for rosehip syrup, jams and jellies

Dried Mushrooms for winter casseroles/ fresh mushrooms for Duxelles

Dried lemon and orange slices for use in pot pourri or home made garlands

Carragheen as a setting agent for jellies

Dried Parsley for use in sauces like parsley sauce

Dried Sage used throughout cooking and also for making home made sage and onion stuffing

Dried Rosemary for roasting lamb, and also home made bread mixes.

Dried Apples for chopping into cakes and macerating in spirit to make home made liqueurs

Dried Chillies for use in general cooking; decorating garlands and for giving to friends as a pressie

Dried Blueberries for use within cakes and/stews casseroles

Dried Celery Leaf for use in soups

Dried Tomatoes for soaking in oil (they have a far richer flavour) and for chopping into dips

Home Made Soaps with natural oils

Home Made Lavender Bags as repellant to insects and for making the bedroom drawers and cupboards smell heavenly

Lavender Bottles to do the same job only they are interwoven with ribbon and free form you weave them in to make their own container

Lavender Cones Gluing in heads of lavender onto a large pine cone and using it to scent a room/wardrobe

Home Made Tinctures

Home Made Oils - a new area and worth experimenting with

Home Made Syrups/Sauce Dressings - yet again a new area.

These are just a few ideas to date - no doubt I will think of more as time goes on.

Do any of you do anything similar would love to hear from you.