Cooking with Essential Oils

It took me a few years to dare start cooking with essential oils and baking with essential oils. Thinking it must be quite a science and not knowing all I needed to do was use one or two drops of essential oil instead of buying herbs at the grocery store.

- Use one drop of basil and one drop of oregano in your home made pasta sauce. Add a drop of thyme, maybe a drop of rosemary. Experiment, but remember to simply add one drop at a time. Use a glass dropper for precise measurements.

- Baking lends itself well to adding essential oils.
I love these healthy pumpkin muffins with nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon essential oils:

2 cups Fiber Bran cereal
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cup Libby's pumpkin pie filling
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups skim milk
1/4 cup Agave syrup (or honey)
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp. canola oil
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup flour
1 tbsp. baking soda
2-3 drops cinnamon essential oil
1-2 drops ginger essential oil
1-2 drops clove essential oil
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Combine bran, water and pumpkin and let sit for 5 minutes
Whisk together eggs, milk, Agave syrup, sugar and oil
Combine egg mixture with bran mixture and stir until smooth
Mix in flours, baking soda and essential oils
Put about 1/2 cup of batter into muffin tin and sprinkle with walnuts, bake for about 20 minutes until tops are brown and toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!

A few more tips for using essential oil in foods:
- Peppermint oil can be added to frosting and chocolate recipes
- Lavender and Lemon are wonderful in Lemonade recipes
- Lemon oil is a great substitute in cake recipes.

Be sure to add essential oils toward the end of the cooking process where possible as in pasta sauces.

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