MAKING HERBAL OILS

Herbal oils are wonderful for gift giving and cooking and massage! Unfortunately, I must start this section with a warning! Making herbal oils can be devastating if you have any spores on the herbs you are using. These spores will and have caused botulism!! Food and Drug Administration has issued warnings that some commerial and home-made oils that contain garlic and other herbs that have no acidifying agents like phosphoric acid or citric acid can cause this botulism. I have not come across any information on how to get rid of the spores. One recipe I have includes a bit of vinegar, which I think will help this problem. And, garlic seeems to be the one which causes the most problem!

Herbal oils and massage oils are made in the same manner. The more of the herb that you infuse into the oil, the more properties the oils retains. Different uses of the massage oils will be the result of which herb you use. Massage oils could be a whole program in itself, and perhaps at another time, that will be! There are many ways in preparing the herbal oils, but they all come down to infusing herbs into warmed oils and WAITING!! Some say to place the herbs into the oil and wait for two-three weeks, some say to place herbs in oil, and let stand for 2 days, take out the wilted herb and re-place with fresh and do this for two weeks. They all say, use a pretty bottle and test for flavor, and if not strong enough, infuse more. And shelf time is two to three months.

When chosing you bottle for herbal oils, choose one with a mouth that would make it easy to put in and take out the herbs. A canning jar would make a good oil basin, and when done, add a fresh sprig of herb to a pretty jar and add already infused oil to it! Bruise the herbs before placing into oil, so aroma can be infused better. You can wash the leaves before making oil, but make sure they are dry before placing them into the oil. Use airtight stoppers on your bottles.

The type of oil you should use is a light well flavored oil like olive oil. Safflower and sunflower oils are also good. After infusing oil, which takes up to 3-5 weeks, it can be good in salad dressings or used by itself or in cooking. Some people heat the oil a bit in the beggining, and also it is a tablespoon of wine vinegar that is added to a pint of oil that may help it from deteriating.