SMALL BOOKS WITH GREAT CONTENT
Small books with great content
consists of small nature books measuring 17 x 12.5 cm and 96 pages – a handy format that makes them easy to carry in your bag. All books are written by experts, and most contain delicious recipes. The perfect hostess gift! The series is regularly expanded with new titles.
Berries
Berries are some of nature’s and the garden’s most flavorful fruits. They contain many vitamins, fibers and antioxidants and are rightly called superfood. In the book Maren Korsgaard goes through more than twenty berry plants – both well-known and lesser-known ones, for example blåfrugtet gedeblad, bærmispel, minikiwi and morbær – and she tells you about the best varieties and explains how to care for them. Not least, you get a number of delicious recipes for jam, smoothies, ice cream, fool, jelly, cakes and shaken berries.
Chili
There are thousands of chili varieties worldwide. Some are mild, some are beautiful, and some are really, really hot! So how do you figure out which varieties to put in your food? Chili experts Lene Tvedegaard and Gunvor Maria Juul give 41 good suggestions in this book. In addition to presenting their own chili favorites, they cover the history of the chili, chili botany, growing chilies, harvest and storage, heat levels and chili in cooking, and share a range of lovely chili recipes.
Fragrant plants
Scents have long ignited passions, and people have paid high prices to possess certain perfumes. The book describes more than 20 different plants that you can grow, harvest and use in creams, scrub salts, salves, tonics, rinses and more. In addition to fragrance, many of these plants also contain vitamins and other beneficial substances that act soothingly or preventively. Some fragrant plants are perfect for potpourri, herbal baths and creams; others can act as insect repellents or disinfectants.
Anemette Olesen is an active course leader and lecturer and has appeared on TV several times. She has published over 50 books about culinary herbs, medicinal plants, edible flowers, gardens and food.
Garden herbs
Culinary herbs are wonderful and indispensable flavor enhancers and can lift even simple dishes to new heights. Their aroma and taste mainly come from the volatile and flavor-giving oils in the plants – the essential oils – which can advantageously be "captured", for example in pesto. Essential oils are also health-promoting, and many culinary herbs are used as medicinal plants. When eaten in the right doses, many herbs are good for our immune system.
Herbs can add a sensory bombardment of scents to the garden, greenhouse or windowsill. They are decorative, and their flowers are edible. So why not supplement the summer flowers or perennials with edible culinary herbs?
In the book Lene Tvedegaard and Gunvor Marie Juul go through 40 herbs and their properties, and they explain how to grow them. The book also contains a number of lovely recipes.
Honey
Honey is diverse in taste and aroma, in texture and color, and exists in a universe comparable to the complex flavor worlds surrounding wine, beer and chocolate. But what determines a honey’s flavor and how do you describe it?
That is something biologist Karin Gutfelt knows well; she is herself a beekeeper and produces honey with a focus on diversity and taste experiences. In the book you can read about the path from nectar to honey, about what lies behind the name on your jar of honey and what creates taste and taste differences. The book also contains a number of delicious recipes with honey as a key ingredient.
Kryddersnaps
Kryddersnaps is the essence of applied botany. Natural and cultural history, infused with sun and fine nature experiences. It’s easy and fairly simple to achieve good results. There’s no need to boil, fry or roast. You simply take some suitable plant parts and let them steep in alcohol for a suitable time before separating plant and liquid again.
Roots, leaves, stems, buds, catkins, flowers, seeds and fruits – many species in nature and the garden are suitable for really good kryddersnaps.
Forest engineer and natural historian Peter Friis Møller has over the years built up a large "bottle herbarium", and in the book he shares his best recipes.
Lavender
The scent of lavender takes us back to grandma’s guest bed between freshly rolled, lavender-scented sheets. The row of lavender along the garden path in full bloom. The soap bought on summer holiday. The taste of bread baked with freshly picked lavender flowers.
Lavender is among the garden favorites. We who love it – and most people do – associate it with calm, harmony and purity. The scent enchants. Once you’ve seen a lavender field in bloom, you never forget it. The flowers’ intense blue color, the strong scent and the sound of many buzzing bumblebees over the field affect all our senses. And there are few plants that can be used for as much as lavender. The plant has for centuries been used extensively both in skincare, as a medicinal plant and as a delightful spicy addition to food.
The book is written by Swedish herb gardener and aromatherapist Eva Olsson and adapted into Danish by herb gardener Inger Vaaben. It tells the history of lavender, how to grow it, its constituents and uses, and also contains recipes for baked goods, jams, ice cream, sugar, caramels and more, all with lavender.
My green pharmacy
My green pharmacy is about medicinal herbs, i.e. plants that can soothe, prevent or perhaps even cure minor ailments such as headaches, colds, arthritis or small wounds. Among them are chamomile, peppermint, aloe vera, ginkgo, ginseng, garlic, cranberry, willow and echinacea, which have all shown to contain natural substances with beneficial properties.
Experienced herbal writer Anemette Olesen has established several medicinal herb gardens. In the book she describes 40 different medicinal herbs and their properties – all herbs that can successfully be grown indoors, in the garden or gathered in nature. Some of the herbs mentioned can also add extra flavor to food.
Mint
Mint has long been known and loved as a culinary herb and medicinal plant. In recent years the gastronomic world has embraced the many new mint varieties, and this book invites you into the diversity of mints.
Inger Vaaben and Jytte Doll Nielsen, who run the organic herb nursery Nielsen & Nielsen, go through many exciting mint variations you can grow, they tell about mint’s history, give insight into the botany and offer good tips on cultivation and harvest.
Chef Nikolaj Kirk has written the foreword and contributed one of the lovely mint recipes, created especially for the book, which he calls "A gift to all of us who love the lovely, fragrant herbs."
Nature’s edible fruits
Nature is teeming with fruits, especially in late summer and autumn. In this book horticulturist and avid forager of nature’s fruits, Bente Halkjær, presents 23 different fruits – from acorn to lingonberry – that can all be gathered and used. Some are well-known, others more unfamiliar. One fruit, seabuckthorn (also known as goji berry), was long considered poisonous but is now approved for general food use.
The new Nordic cuisine has inspired us to reconnect with nature’s plants and use them in food. And fruits, in particular, can be gathered, eaten and preserved by anyone. In the book you’ll find recipes for, for example, acorn cookies, juniper mustard, hazelnut cream, hot sea buckthorn juice with spices, sloe jelly, apple wreaths, mirabelle chutney, lingonberry buns, blackthorn apple jelly and wild strawberry meringues.
Rhubarb
It wasn’t until around 1930 that people here began eating rhubarb. Originally the plant was used exclusively as a medicinal herb, and its history can be traced back several thousand years. Today this tart vegetable is used widely across the world, both in savory and sweet cooking, and there are more than 70 different varieties.
In this little book Inger Vaaben, owner of the organic herb nursery Nielsen & Nielsen, shares her knowledge about the popular harbinger of spring — its history, cultivation and uses. Carsten Lunding, food architect and author of several books on taste, has contributed recipes and the chapter on rhubarb flavors.
The book contains 28 rhubarb recipes for main dishes, desserts, preserves, drinks and accompaniments.
Rhubarb is a pocket edition and replaces the book Smagen af Rabarber, first published in 2015.
Roses
There are countless rose varieties, and new ones appear all the time. Some are fleeting, others prove able to withstand our climate and diseases. This book focuses on describing the most beautiful, hardy and healthy varieties—the roses that give you maximum pleasure with minimal trouble.
Landscape architect Jane Schul describes a range of good varieties within the common rose groups. Some are well-known, others less familiar but all recommendable because of their beautiful flowers and/or fragrance. There’s plenty to choose from across botanical, historical and modern rose types.
Butterflies and flowers
Day butterflies are beautiful and inevitably inspire admiration with their color splendor and graceful flight. We delight in the first yellow brimstone or the colorful peacock butterfly flitting around the perennial bed. Hawkmoths and moths are seen less often because they are mainly active in the evening, but they also have their own beauty and poetry once you become aware of them.
In the book Susanne Harding, biologist, agronomist and specialist in insect ecology, presents the most common butterfly species in Danish nature and, not least, in our gardens. She describes the butterflies’ interesting lives, which you can observe yourself once you know what to look for, and gives tips on which plants you can add to your garden to attract even more butterflies.
Edible flowers
With the new Nordic cuisine there has been a "bloom" of interest in wild and cultivated herbs in Scandinavia, and many skilled chefs have embraced the use of flowers for decoration and in food. That enthusiasm naturally rubs off on the rest of us. Edible flowers are more popular than ever, and many people want to know which flowers they can use and for what.
In the book experienced garden and food writer Anemette Olesen recommends flowers that can be picked and eaten to everyone’s delight. The book contains plenty of good tips and recipes such as candied pansies, summer soup, woodruff schnapps and cake with night violets.
Edible mushrooms
Foraging for mushrooms in nature is delightful, but it isn’t always easy to tell edible mushrooms from poisonous ones. The easy edible mushrooms like chanterelle, edible bolete, oyster mushroom and field mushroom are manageable, but other fungi require help and guidance from a mushroom expert.
Author, illustrator and avid mushroom hunter Peter Nielsen has spent his life in nature. In this book he has drawn and described 25 common edible mushrooms. Each mushroom is described with size, appearance, habitat, smell, taste and possible look-alikes. He tells you what to avoid when collecting and preparing mushrooms, and the book also contains nine delicious mushroom recipes.
Edible wild plants
Many of nature’s plants are edible, and it can become a sport to forage for wild plants and use them in various dishes. A walk in the spring forest can be combined with gathering ramsons, nettle, dead-nettle, wood violet, woodruff, wood sorrel and cow parsley. And on a spring trip to the beach you can pick sea rocket, sea kale, sea plantain and sea mustard. All plants suitable for use in the kitchen.
There are really many possibilities, but it’s important to know the difference between edible and poisonous plants. In this book Anemette Olesen goes through a number of particularly good plants recommended for eating and that are easy to find. The plants are illustrated with lifelike drawings.
The book also includes recipes, for example mushroom salad with dandelion leaves and pear-almond tart with fresh violets.
Wild bees and bee plants
The sound of buzzing bees flying from flower to flower is the epitome of spring and summer. Bees are important pollinators of both wild and cultivated plants and a vital part of biological diversity. Wild bees, however, have declined dramatically everywhere due to a lack of nesting sites and suitable forage plants. We must act to reverse this trend.
The prerequisite for helping the bees is knowledge about them and their lives. Their natural habitat is in nature, but we can also help them in the garden or on the terrace by offering good living and nesting sites and bee-friendly flowers.
In the book Susanne Harding, biologist, agronomist and specialist in insect ecology, tells about the lives of wild bees and their preferred plants and habitats.
Herbal tea from nature and garden
We drink herbal tea because it benefits the body and for the pleasure of it. The tradition comes from monks. They made plant infusions with boiling water because they discovered that different kinds of plant extracts could soothe, heal or prevent various ailments.
A daily cup of herbal tea can become one of the day’s lovely and stress-relieving small moments. In the book Anemette Olesen explains how you can easily gather and dry herbs yourself, which ones can be used and what they are good for. And she shows how gentle drying preserves the medicinal constituents.
You also get recipes for teas made from herbs you can grow or gather in nature.
Apples
The apple is probably the most familiar fruit here at home, and there are many varieties to choose from. In this book you get help to find out which varieties suit your garden and taste.
Author and horticulturalist Maren Korsgaard describes 24 tasty and robust apple varieties – red and green, large and small – and tells about flavor, appearance, storage life, flesh and health value.
The book also contains a number of lovely recipes with apples – jelly, syrup, purée, chutney, cake, salad and soup.
