Holiday Scents

 

Photo by Mel Poole

Remember holidays when you were a kid... How it smelled like evergreen trees, cinnamon and spices with maybe a hint of citrus? Like sugar cookies and gingerbread? Maybe your house smells like all of these things right now. Isn't that a wonderful smell? You can have that scent any time you want really. I have a very simple recipe here to recreate that holiday aroma with ingredients you may already have on hand. Also it does not matter if you do not have all of these ingredients because it is all a matter of preference and what you happen to have on hand. This is holiday potpourri but it's not that fake smelling stuff our mom's and grandma's used to always have. 

Directions:

Get a small to medium size sauce pan and fill it about half way with water. Collect your ingredients, one orange sliced (I always use mandarin oranges because that is always what I have on hand), one cinnamon stick, several whole cloves, a few pepper corns, fresh ginger slices, allspice and star anise. Then get some cuttings from an evergreen tree/bush. I have a juniper bush so that is what I use (the juniper that I have does not have berries so I just use small pieces of the boughs). A pine cone or fir cone (even if they are dry they still work because they have tree resins in them that are released when simmered). What ever you can find or have available (you may need to do some urban foraging in your neighborhood in the parking strips to get some of these ingredients, if you would like). Put all ingredients into your pan of water on the stove and bring to a simmer. Simmer for as long as you would like but make sure not to forget about it so keep an eye on the water level. 

Enjoy your holidays! 

xo

Photo by Annie Spratt