How to Cook with Lavender

If you're accustomed to only using lavender in your bath salts or salt scrubs, you might want to consider the culinary uses of this fragrant herb. Lavender can be used fresh or dried in both savory and sweet dishes. It's an ingredient in the classic herbs de Provence mixture, but it's increasingly being used by chefs and home cooks as an ingredient on its own.

As you can see from these 8 recipes, lavender is a versatile herb.

Lemon-Lavender Blackberry & Ricotta Grilled Cheese Sandwiches: This vegan grilled cheese sandwich combines lavender-seasoned blackberry sauce and macadamia ricotta as the filling for a grown-up grilled cheese.

Iced Chamomile Lavender Tea: A soothing, cooling iced tea, this beverage is simple to make and doesn't cost much money

Strawberry Lavender Soup: This is a creamy cold soup that's pureed. It wouldn't be inappropriate to serve it for dessert with a side of sugar cookies for "crackers."

Lavender and Rosemary Potatoes: This simple side dish has an herb-infused butter poured over boiled potatoes.

Lavender Shortbread Cookies: Lavender and shortbread seem to be the new classic cookie pairing. A simple cookie dough gets chilled before being cut into perfect rounds in these treats

Chocolate Cupcakes with Lavender Goat Cheese Frosting: There are plenty of lavender-inspired baked goods to choose from, but the goat cheese frosting on these cupcakes caught my attention.

Lavender Creme Brulee: This is no more work than a traditional creme brulee (which is much easier than many people think it is). The lavender is thrown in with the cream while it heats up to add a touch of the herb to the dessert.

Lavender Bee's Knees Cocktail: While you're preparing your lavender-inspired dishes, sip on this cocktail that adds lavender to the honey syrup in this traditional gin cocktail.

You can purchase culinary lavender at the store, grow your own lavender and use it fresh, dry it, or use a high-grade lavender essential oil (purchase here.)

(original article found on www.mnn.com)

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