The Hour

Herbalist Karon Grieve is excitedly anticipating the Christmas period, as it’s the time of year when she really gets to put her creativity to use, and make her loved ones homemade gifts.

Here she shares some of her recipes for tasty foodie gifts, which are really easy to make, but have that nice personal touch about them.

If you’d like to try to make Karokn’s herbed cheese medely, marinated olives or wintry salad vinegar, check out the recipes below.

1. Herbed cheese medley
Ingredients:
• Feta, mozzarella or goats cheese
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 1 large chilli chopped
• 3 bay leaves
• Rind of 1 lemon
• Olive oil

Method:
1. Use a wide-mouthed jar to make this in
2. Add the ingredients and leave in the fridge for one week to allow the flavours to develop; this will keep for three months in the fridge
It must be matured in fridge for one week to let the flavours develop

2. Marinated olives
Ingredients:
• Mixture of green and black olives
• Fresh ginger
• Dried chilli flakes
• Lemon peel
• Garlic infused oil

Method:
1. Get a wide-mouthed jar to keep your ingredients
Stone the olives before using them
2. Add about ¾ of an inch of ginger, peel and grate
3. Peel rind off an un-waxed or well scrubbed lemon
4. Garlic infused oil (please note: this must be made in a safe way to avoid the risk of botulism; please watch Karon’s demonstration in the video above)

3. Wintry salad vinegar
Ingredients:
• Bunch of thyme
• Bunch of sage
• White wine vinegar

Method:
1. To a jar add the white wine vinegar and the thyme and sage
2. Leave for a week to mature
3. Decant into a pretty bottle and use on strongly flavoured salad leaves like spinach and rocket

Find out more about Karon or get more great recipes and gift ideas from her website.