To celebrate this fantastic month I thought I would do something a little special here on my blog. I'm a big fan of cooking with fresh herbs - that is herbs that are not dried and don't come in little containers sold by McCormick. While those dried herbs do have their place and I use them occasionally, I love using fresh herbs when I cook. I love using them so much in fact that I grow a variety of herbs myself. I haven't had much luck with starting them from seeds, so I buy some that have already been started and plant them myself in my own pots and keep them near the windows at my house. I call them my "plant babies" :-) Anyway, my idea for this month is to feature each of my plant babies in their own recipe and share them with you.
I had actually been able to maintain several herb plants over a couple of years, but unfortunately last year they got infected with spider mites. While I was able to keep the plants alive with fresh growth for some time, I finally had to give up and throw them out, which broke my heart. I have since replaced them with new plant babies and am crossing my fingers that they don't succumb to the same fate as the old ones. My fresh plant babies include: basil, oregano, curly parsley, rosemary, thyme, spearmint, and lavender.
Lavender.
While I started out being not partial to the scent of lavender (its very strong and soapy scent), it has grown on me over time and now I quite like it. I mainly bought it because I think it's lovely and I now do enjoy its fragrance, but I was trying to think of ways I could use it for cooking. I came across a picture on Pinterest of a lavender-honey cupcake and was inspired by that very classic flavor combination. I decided to make it into an iced-tea.
Now I know I have very recently blogged about another favorite iced-tea of mine, but hey - it's spring, it's warm outside and therefore I figure you can never have too many iced-tea recipes in your refreshments arsenal. I made this tea for a lunch I was hosting at my house and it was a hit, so I thought I'd share it with you to kick off my month of May / herb celebration.
While most of the time you see lavender flowers, or the dried form, used in cooking, I don't yet have any flowers blooming on my newly purchased lavender plant. I gave the stems and leaves a good sniff and realized that they are very fragrant themselves and figured it couldn't hurt to try using them in the recipe instead of the flower petals. It worked out perfectly.
I decided to pair it with white tea because white tea is so light, its flavor wouldn't interfere with the flavors I wanted to highlight - the lavender and the honey.
OK, enough background info - let's get cookin'!
Lavender Honey Iced Tea
Servings: 1 pitcher
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes + about two hours to cool in the fridge
Ingredients:
1 tea kettle of water
4 white tea bags
1/3 cup clover honey
5 sprigs lavender leaves
Place the tea kettle of water on a burner over high heat.
While you're waiting for the water to boil, make your lavender infused honey. Pour the honey into a sauce pan sitting on a burner set on medium-low heat and add four of the lavender stems to it. Allow to infuse the entire time the water is coming to a boil for the tea, as well as while the tea is steeping, so about 15 minutes total.
When the water is done, remove the kettle from the heat, take the lid off, and put the four tea bags directly into the water.
Steep for five minutes and then remove the tea bags from the water and discard.
Remove the lavender infused honey from the heat. Carefully pick out the lavender stems and leaves from the warm honey. Pour the honey into your pitcher followed immediately by the hot tea, and stir until the honey has dissolved.
Once the tea is completely cooled, serve over ice, or as I prefer- without, and enjoy! Salute!
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