Fall is just around the corner. It’s soup season!

Today, I stopped by Ranch 99 and bought a black chicken (silkie) to make this herbal soup. My mom often made herbal soups as we were growing up. She has a recipe of herbs that she uses on a regular basis.

The herbs she uses are:
Dang Shen
Yu Zu
Huai Shan
Huang Qi
Guo Qi Zi (Chinese Wolfberries)

I added red dates, dried scallops and sea cucumber for this soup.

This page has good information about each herb.

My mom told me that these herbs are mild and suitable for more frequent consumption. These herbs are supposed to strengthen your body. I remember she made them at least once/twice a month.

To make the soup, you actually put the chicken along with herbs and all the ingredients plus water in a ceramic pot that has a lid. Then, you put the ceramic pot in a bigger pot and steam for about 2 hours.

For the past few months, I have been collecting, sorting and storing seeds. Some are from my garden and some are from my walks in the neighborhood.

When I visited my friend Lissa’s garden couple of weeks ago, she gave me some Mexican Sunflower seeds from her garden. She knows that I have been hunting and gathering for seeds. Then she asked me “How do you keep track of your seeds? Do you photograph them?”

Actually, I have just been collecting seeds and putting them in different small bottles so far. I have been able to identify them without too much trouble. Photographing them seem to be a great and useful way to make sure that I don’t someday get them mixed up. (It is fun to take my Remington Typewriter out to do some typing too.) And hopefully, my little digital library of seeds would be useful to someone else as well.

Thank you Lissa for giving me this great idea to keep track of my seeds. I am looking forward to sowing them next year in my garden.

Click here to view the complete seed collection