Herbs & Plants

Peppermint

If anyone has grown peppermint before whether in a garden or in a planter on a window sill, you know that it grows like a weed.  I bought my peppermint from an organic farm in May of this year and I have had an abundance of mint this whole summer.  Even when some leaves have dried up and have fallen many more new leaves come up right after.   My mint grows in a planter in the kitchen.  I try and use it as often as I can but peppermint has such a strong flavor that I have to be in the mood to want to eat it.  But today while looking at it thriving in my kitchen I decided to satisfy a craving and at the same time write about peppermint and all the benefits of using this herb.

Peppermint is actually a hybrid plant and is a cross between spearmint and watermint.   It’s indigenous to the Middle East and Europe with the majority of the world’s production of peppermint being in Morocco.  In the United States most of the peppermint is grown in Oregon and Washington.

 

Besides peppermint being cooling and refreshing to the taste buds their are other benefits such as it:

  • aids digestion.
  • helps heartburn.
  • can aid in alerting the mind.
  • relieves intestinal gas.
  • has memory enhancement properties.
  • relaxes nerves.
  • helps circulation.
  • deters pests such as ants and flies.
  • helps with nausea.
With all the peppermint I have, I plan at a later date to dry some peppermint leaves and make tea bags for tea but today I had a strong craving for chocolate mint ice cream and you know when you have a craving sometimes the best thing to do is just indulge.  So I decided to indulge and make chocolate mint “ice cream” and I did it the Native Batch way by making it healthy. 
To make this “ice cream” I used 5 slightly frozen small baby bananas (Manzano bananas) cut in half,  two tablespoons of Cacao powder, a couple of sprigs of peppermint and roughly a 1/2 cup of unsweetened vanilla hemp milk.  I blended everything up in a food processor and the result was a  chocolatey, minty soft serve that did not even taste like banana.  Delicious!

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