Lavender
Lavender is the best of summer wrapped into a tiny, delicate, soothing, pretty flower. When I decided to grow lavender in my garden, I had no idea if it would freeze in the winter or get eaten by bugs in the summer. I am so happy that it did neither. Towards the beginning of summer, my little lavender plants sprouted the prettiest little purple flowers. I get super excited to harvest them. Once they were drying in my kitchen, the fun part of deciding how to use them began. below are a few recipes I came up with.
The first thing I made was Lemon Lavender Cookies. I made them very thin, wafer like. The flavor of these cookies was light, sweet, and summery.
They fairly easy to make. Just take your favorite sugar cookie recipe. I substituted almond meal for white flour. In the dry ingredients, i.e. the flour, salt, and baking soda, add organic lemon peel. I used the peel from an entire lemon. I like strong flavors. You can choose to use less. Also add about a tablespoon of lavender flowers.
In the wet ingredients, sugar, butter, and egg, add the juice from 1 lemon. Make sure you don't let any seeds get in the batter. Proceed to make the cookies as you would any other sugar cookie.
What we put into our bodies will nourish us. That is why it is so important to make sure that we use real ingredients when we cook. But we often forget that our skin is an organ. What we put on our skin will get absorbed into the bloodstream and also nourish the body. My next recipe is designed to soothe and calm us from the outside in.
This herbal infused body oil can be used in place of lotion. In the summer, due to the heat, and so as not to aggravate pitta dosha, it is best to use either coconut or sunflower oil.
Keep in mind that one of the places pitta resides is in the skin, making it that much more important to care for it with natural oils. In this recipe, I filled a jar with sunflower oil. I added dried rose petals and dried lavender flowers with the leaves and the stems.
The absolute simplest thing you can do with lavender, is to infuse your water with it. We all know how healthy and beneficial drinking lemon water is. Adding a few sprigs of
lavender to your lemon water will give it a whole new flavor. It is refreshing, relaxing, and hydrating. I know that sometimes I get tired of drinking water all of the time. I don't like soda, and I rarely drink juice.
Infusing water with different fruits and flowers definitely helps me to stay hydrated and healthy without adding all of the unnecessary calories and sugars.
I hope that these recipes inspire you to play around with the flavors of summer. Lavender is a wonderfully relaxing plant to work with. If you don't have a garden, you can order lavender from Mountain Rose Herbs.
As always, much love and namaste friends