Thanks again, Pat, for sharing your recipe for that yummy drink :)

===

There is also another wonderful Cookbook, copyrighted in 1999, which was the first recipe book

to combine therapeutic-grade essential oils with the diet of the world's longest-lived cultures.

It is Menkit Prince's "The Essential Oils Cookbook," containing 182 original, inspired recipes.

Available from Essential Science Publishing: Code #2EOC1,  178 pages, $22.95

Following are a couple of examples of recipes from Menkit's creative cookbook:

First, an option to the beverage above is:

Arabian Spice Apple Cider:

4 cups apple juice

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

4 drops Clove oil

8 drops Nutmeg oil

8 drops Lemon oil

Bring the apple juice & cinnamon powder up to heat - not up to a boil. Right before service add Clove, Nutmeg & Lemon oils.  Stir well. Serve hot or chilled. 

Optional:  Substitute Mandarin & Lime oils for Clove, Nutmeg & Lemon oils.

Marrakech Stuffed Dates (for your buffet table)

10 dates

10 brazil nuts

4 teaspoons tahini

4 teaspoons water

1 drop Tangerine Oil

Cream tahini by adding water a little at a time and stirring. It wil thicken and whiten. Add Tangerine Oil and stir.  Open dates & remove pits. Spoon one tenth of the tahini cream into each date, then stuff with a whole brazil nut. Voila!

You now have the opportunity to replace some of your older recipes with some fresh new ideas from these two unique Cookbooks!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HOLIDAY GIFTS YOU CAN MAKE - USING YLEOs

As you make up any items to put in baskets, you can fill the basket with wood shavings, OR you

can also make Potpourri (see below) and nest the items in that.

POTPOURRI SUGGESTIONS

There are many possibilities. You can go to any good craft store, and/or herb store, and pick up dried plant materials: dried flower petals, herbs, spices, mosses, pods, leaves, cones, roots, seeds...the list is endless.

The goal is to make a lovely blend of colors, scents, and textures, composed of these dried plant materials, essential oils, and a fixative to hold the scent.  Some effective fixatives are orris root, oak moss, and calamus root.  I have many recipes for various potpourris, so have the difficult task of choosing which to present here. Let's go for the Christmas Potpourri:

Step 1.

Tear 1 cup oak moss into small bits; add 5 drops of Idaho Balsam oil; mix well.

Cure 2 days in airtight container. Using a mortar & pestle (or your best version :), bruise, crumble, and mix 3T each of star anise, rosemary, cardamom pods, and juniper berries.

Step 2.

Combine spice & oak moss mixtures in bowl. Add 5 more drops of Idaho Balsam oil; mix gently.

Add 20 bay leaves and 1/4 cup of 1" cinnamon sticks; transfer contents to an airtight container for 2 weeks (or longer if you have time).  Stir or gently shake every day.

Step 3.

When raw scent mellows to softer aroma, potpourri is ready. Mix in 1/4 cup dried rosebuds & petals, 1 cup of pinecones, and 10 dried orange slices. Transfer potpourri to pretty bowls or gift bags.

NOTE:  Even though you use a fixative, it is a nice idea to add a bottle of the essential oil used,

    so the scent can be refreshed over time.

POMANDERS:

You can make a lovely fragrant pomander (large ball to be hung in the house, or on the tree), by

making your potpourri, then covering a styrofoam ball in glue, then rolling it in the potpourri.

When dry, tie with a lovely ribbon.

SACHETS - for drawers, closets, or suitcases

For an easy sachet, you can tuck a tulle pouch of potpourri into a folded crocheted doily and weave it closed with a ribbon. 

Another option: Use fabric, potpourri & a glue gun for a simple, no sew sachet.  Use fabrics that

complement the fragrance; i.e., plaid for a woodsy pine, or elegant embroidered fabric for a feminine floral sachet.   Roll the potpourri in the fabric, glue the end to seal; then tie the ends with ribbons and dried flowers or...your choice.

SIMPLE BATH SALTS

One of our new Distributors, Jo Anderson, made some lovely gifts of bath salts by mixing together

1/2 & 1/2 Epsom Salts & Baking Soda. She then had two clever ideas. To add the fragrance, she

put her choice of essential oil on a cotton ball and stirred it through the mixture to avoid clumping

that occurs if you just drop in oil.  Then for color (as in lavender for lavender scent), she used a

quality powder eye shadow (you can get some lovely ones at the health food store), and stirred some in (for the same reason...if you use food coloring, it can clump.)  Once the cork or cap was on, she tied

some beautiful dried flowers and ribbons around the neck of the jars.  Voila! A perfect, simple, and

economical gift!

Note that you can also use sea salt, or rock salt.

My daughter uses another method altogether.

She uses any of the above-mentioned salts, vegetable glycerine to make the salts shine & distribute the color evenly, food coloring (she used ones from the craft store), and essential oil.  She used coloring to enhance the effect of the fragrance:  blue for healing, red for love, green for abundance, etc.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Put a few ounces of the salts in a plastic bag, add 7-15 drops of oil - depending on the strength of the oil.  Add a few drops of corresponding color, and add a few drops of glycerine. Shake until well mixed, then pour into a container & decorate.

SALT GLOW

Very easy!  Mix 50-50 amounts of regular or popcorn salt and V6 Oil.  Add several drops of essential oils, and let sit for 4 days.  Put into decorative container.

SPRITZER COLOGNE

Several drops of your favorite essential oil in a spritzer bottle filled to the shoulder with distilled water.

You can add a few drops of benzoin as a fixative to keep the scent in the spritzer. (Best to use glass,

not plastic bottles. Also have seen people use some metal containers.)

BOTTLES:

There are many places to get appropriate bottles - you can even go online to find sources.

One source for 1 oz & 4 oz blue spray bottles is Abundant Health. They also have little clear

vials on sale this month for adding a little touch of fragrance to your cards & gifts.

To check out their site, go to:  www.abundanthealth.us.

CARRYING CASES:

Another gift idea is a carrying case for the oils. Essential Science Publishing has a wide selection

of various sizes.  You can check them out at www.essentialscience.net.

NOTE:  Essential Science Publishing has explained why the CD of the 3rd Edition EDR is not yet available.  They have run into a challenge in getting it to be compatible with both PCs and MACs.

The former CD was only available to PC users, and they are doing their best to make this one available to everyone with a computer.  They are working on it diligently, and hope to have it ready soon.

A TIP FOR POURING OILS

As you are pouring drops of oil - whether working on these gifts, or pouring into capsules, etc., David and Lee Stewart have given us a wonderful tip.  Although it would seem that the oils are coming from the larger hole in the reducer cap, there is actually another tiny hole in the rim.  When you have an oil that does not seem to want to pour easily, if you turn the bottle until that little hole is lined up just right, the oil pours easily. I tried it, and it works!  Thanks, Lee, for discovering it, and David for sharing it :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As always, my friends, there is so much more that we could share, but hopefully you will be

able to glean some ideas for your holiday giving from this issue.

May your heart be filled with the joy of sharing...remembering all of our blessings.

THOUGHT FOR THE SEASON:

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." 

                                                                                                            - Winston Churchill