Last month, I went to the Lavender Festival at
Highland Springs Resort in Cherry Valley, CA. Highland Springs is the largest producer of organic lavender in Southern California. They also have an excellent steakhouse onsite.
After gorging myself on lamb kebabs, roasted corn, and lavender cheesecake, I hit the lavender booth and bought lavender EVERYTHING:
a cookbook, sugar, hand sanitizer, lotion, etc. I really need better supervision at these things.
Paging through the cookbook, I found a recipe for ginger-lavender lemonade, which sounded delicious, especially as the temps here have been flirting with the triple digits.
We have our own organic lavender plant, and a lemon tree that has produced some spectacularly ugly lemons that are nonetheless saturated with essential oil and produce a lot of juice. So, I tried making an adapted version of the recipe from the cookbook and it was delicious! There is something about the ability to feed (or in this case, make a tasty beverage for) oneself with products that came from your own yard that is immensely satisfying.
Lavender-Lemonade
1 recipe Lavender-Lemon Syrup
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
4 cups water (I used spring water)
Mix ingredients together in a pitcher; serve over ice.
Lavender-Lemon Syrup
3/4 cup organic sugar (1 cup if lavender sugar is unavailable)
1/4 cup organic lavender sugar (make your own, or whole foods may have it)
zest of 2 lemons
2 T culinary-grade lavender buds
2 cups water
Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and stir to combine. Heat over medium-high to a boil, stirring occasionally. Boil one minute, then remove from heat. Strain out solids and allow to cool to room temperature.
