Book Review: Honey Crafting

With how much I enjoy bees, getting sent a copy of Honey Crafting: From Delicious Honey Butter to Healing Salves, Projects for Your Home Straight from the Hive to review was very special to me.

Set in 3 sections, it covers over 60 recipes and projects for home, body and kitchen. If you haven’t worked with beeswax before, it is wonderful used in soap, lotions, balms and yes, candles. These beauties I snagged last fall from my local bee keeper, and I dole them out very slowly in projects. Quality I treasure! The lip balms in the book will get you looking for a bee keeper, as will how to take melted scraps of beeswax and make sheets for roiling into candles. And why beeswax, and not modern “wax”? Simple: support local bee keepers, keep bees needed and healthy, promote pollination in your area but also avoid using candles and body products made from petro chemicals.

These babies above are treasured pieces of beeswax!

And on to the recipes – beets and honey? Always a match that is lovely tasting!

Honey-Orange Beets

Ingredients:

• 1 large bunch beets
• Zest of 1 orange
• 2 Tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 tsp unsalted butter
• 1 tsp local honey or quality organic honey
• ¼ tsp ground ginger
• Fine sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

Cut the beet greens off, set aside. Scrub beets and put in a large saucepan, cover with cold water. Bring to boil, simmer mostly covered until fork tender. This takes 30 to 40 minutes, depending on size.

Drain beets, let cool slightly. Slip off skins, trim and slice as desired, place in a glass bowl.

In a small saucepan, heat the orange zest, orange juice, butter, honey and ginger over low heat until the butter melts.

Toss the beets with the sauce, season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve warm or chill first.

To use beet greens, if desired: Wash leaves thoroughly and spin to dry, slice and use in the salad.

I served the beets as part of a salad, with baby spinach and red lettuce simply dressed in an olive oil/lemon juice vinaigrette, topped with beets, candied pecans and goat cheese.

~Sarah

FTC Disclaimer: We received a copy of the book for potential review.