Friday, August 1, 2008

Cooking with Lavender

If you have never used lavender in cooking, here are some ideas and recipes to try. It is important to use organically grown, culinary lavender for obvious reasons. There are some types of lavender that taste "soapy". Make sure you have one that has a more "floral" or "fruity" taste, especially if introducing lavender-laced foods for the first time, to family and friends who may already be skeptical. Basically, there are three ways to use Lavender in cooking:

1. Lavender Sugar

Leave lavender in sugar for 1 week, strain and use sugar in other recipes

2. Lavender Infusion

Steep in water, oil or vinegar, then used infused liquid in other recipes

3. Lavender as Dried Herb

Substitute in recipes where you would normally use herbs such as
Rosemary or Thyme

Easy Recipes:

Lavender Lemonade
Lavender Lemon-Ginger Dressing
Lavender Roasted Beets
Lavender Roasted Potatoes
Lavender Scones

Lavender Festivals occur all over the country. A couple of them that I know about are:

Here in Sonoma County, California, Sonoma Lavender will have its Lavender Festival Saturday and Sunday, June 14 and 15. It's a small festival put on by one grower, but I've been going for years and I always learn something new. That's where I had Lavender Lemonade for the first time and it was sublime. It not only refreshes, but relaxes you. You feel like you've had a glass of wine, but no alcohol so no need for a designated driver, Ha! ha! I do make a Lavender Rosemary Cordial, which contains vodka and brandy, but that's another story.

In Sequim, Washington, the Lavender Festival will be Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 18, 19 & 20.

This post was moved from one of my other blogs.

5 comments:

Jackie said...

I love lavender and use it in many ways but have never tried it with beets.

Thanks for the interesting post and useful links.

Anonymous said...

I also have on my blog a recipe for a fat free lavender cheesecake. Its surprisingly good. You dont even miss the fat.

Anonymous said...

Hi
I sent you an award! {lease go to my blog to get it.
You have a very nice and informative blog.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I couldn't figure out any other way to contact you! This is how I did it: first right click the picture of the award and save it to your desktop or wherever you save that sort of thing. Then write your post, add in the pic same way you add in others. For the sites you choose, list them by name, highlight, go to the site and copy the URL and then put it on your blog like any other link, I saw that you have one (website) in the post about going to Melissa Gardens
(it's OK to feel disappointed!!) I'm not really sure how to do it with blogspot, I have Wordpress. If I didn't have help with this stuff I would be beyond clueless! If you can't do it that's OK I understand but just so you know I think you and your blog are AWESOME!

Wendy said...

The Lavender BBQ sauce from Sequim is a must try!