This beautiful lavender was growing near the bus stop on Jersey Island
January 2011
Winter is just getting underway and already I can’t wait until spring. Our first snow has melted and I can see all my lavender plants just resting in the garden wearing their grey winter foliage. I added a few new varieties and I hope they will make it through the rest of the winter.
I’m going to change this blog’s topic from L. latifolia to using lavender in a few winter recipes. One of the pleasures last summer was visiting a variety of lavender farms and picking up unique offerings at each. Christmas Eve, 2010 I had company for lunch. I decided on scallop potatoes as one of the dishes and picked up Yukon Gold potatoes. At Prince Edward County Lavender I picked up their herbal blend “Herbs de Provence” blend and at Five Sisters of Lavender Lane on Prince Edward Island, bought thier “Lavender Sea Salt”. My cousin told me my great aunt used to put cream of mushroom soup in her dish to add flavor for the potatoes and below is what I did.
Scalloped Potatoes
You will need:
9″ square pyrex dish
3 large Yukon Gold potatoes
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 can Cream of Mushroom soup
4 tablespoons of milk or cream
Herbs de Provence
Lavender Sea Salt (regular salt is fine)
2 tablespoons of butter
Spray the dish with ‘no-stick cooking spray’
Slice the potatos fairly thinly – 1/8″ – 1/4″ thick
Blend sour cream, mushroom soup and 2 – 3 tablespoons of Herbs de Provence.
You will be doing 3 layer of potatoes.
Place 1/3 of the potatoes in the dish.
Spread 1/2 of the sour cream, soup, herb blend on the potatoes.
Layer the next 1/3 of the potatoes.
Spread the rest of the sour cream, soup, herb blend mix and the butter
Pour the milk over the layer.
Layer the remaining potatoes and sprinkle with Lavender Sea Salt to taste.
I don’t use a lot of salt when I cook and the soup has salt in it, so we found it salty enough.
Pre-heat the oven to 350F and cook covered for about 1 hour or until done.
Roast Vegetables with Lavender Honey
This year I did carrots and parsnips. They were sliced and par-boiled.
A baking dish was sprayed with a non-stick spray. Put vegetables in the dish.
Spoon lavender honey on them to taste. Pre-heat the oven to 350F and cook for about 45 minutes, turning once.
Lavender Jelly
If you purchased any this summer, winter is a great time to use on warmed store-bought scones. Or try serving it as a condiment with lamb.
Next time: Lavender Resolutions for 2011
January 6, 2011 at 2:24 pm |
Hi, my name is Becki Robbins. I have a problem with lavender that I hope you can help me with. I have a lavender bush that came with my new home, and it has died out in the center. I want to bring this beautiful bush back to the way I know it can look but don’t know how! I am in southern Arizona next to the Mexico border and with the exception of being about 15 to 20 degrees C warmer it is very similar to where I lived in Alberta! I don’t know how old the bush is but it is aprox. 2 1/2 feet tall and about the same in diameter. I hope you can help but if not, point me in the right direction? Thanks for your time, Becki
January 10, 2011 at 4:14 pm |
Hi Becki. Thank you for visiting my blog! If the plant has died out in the middle it may be hard to bring back to the ‘bush shape’ we all want, but here are a few suggestions.
First – you are 100% sure it is lavender? Remove anything that is dead, especially from the centre of the plant. Look at the live stems. Most varieties produce new growth at the top that is soft and either green or grey in color. Below that the stem gradually turns to wood. The trick is to cut it back close to the wood, but not into the wood, because that woody growth will not always produce new growth. Carefully prune the stems back. Often pruning will encourage new growth and once you remove what is dead in the centre, that might be enough to encourage it put out new growth.
This may take a few prunings to acheive and the plant may look a bit sad for a while, but it is worth trying.
Let me know if this works. I wish I could come to Arizona and see it myself!!
August 21, 2011 at 2:13 pm |
I purchased a beautiful canister of Lavender sea salt in Forcalquier and I just have no idea what to use it on. Any suggestions besides scalloped potatoes? Thank you!
August 23, 2011 at 2:12 pm |
Hi. Thank you for reading my blog and taking time to send a question. Lavender sea salt can be used almost anywhere you might use regular sea salt. Try it with chicken or duck – you could put a crust of it on chicken. I’m not a big fish eater, but I would think the salt would finish off fish nicely. Not too many veggies go well with lavender, potatoes are the only one I can think of – so even baked potatoes. If you make scones from scratch, I would try using your lavender salt instead of regular salt. Lavender is in the same family as rosemary, so anywhere you might use rosemary, you can try lavender. I hope this helps.
Christine