Lavender is such a beautiful flower.
I love seeing it grow in Los Angeles because it brings color to the brown and crunchy landscapes. Soon after moving here, my roommate and I bought a small lavender plant and added it to our front lawn. Since, it’s been flourishing fabulously and has grown 4 times it’s size! I love seeing the bees buzzing around the lilac petals, searching for food. Reminds me that life still exists in this desert…
I not only like the colors of lavender but also the smell. Its rich, flowery scent can be overwhelming but I love how well the petals and leaves dry. They can be crumbled into a mesh bag and stuffed into a sock drawer or closet for years without losing scent!
The one thing I didn’t know is that lavender could be used in recipes! I was introduced to this while watching a cooking video about Lavender Caramels. Also while lesson planning for my high school students, I was trying to find recipes that would reflect edible parts of the plant: Roots, stem, leaves, flowers, fruit and seeds.
I’d found recipes for everything but the flowers. Broccoli is a flower but I wanted a recipe that used herbal flowers and not vegetables. Maybe something sweet that could be more of a dessert…
So I look up recipes for flowers. A tea perhaps….
…somehow or other I came across hot Lavender Tea with honey or lemon. I tasted it and decided that cold would be tastier. It was!
So I added Lavender Lemonade to the recipe list.
I was surprised how much of a hit it was; the kids loved it and drank the whole thing. I think they liked it better than the salad they’d made the week before ;-)
Here’s the recipe for you!
- 2 cups hot water
- 1 cup sugar
- 5 lavender sprigs
- zest from 2 lemons
- 1/2 cup lemon juice (3-4 lemons?)
- 8 cups cold water
- ice, if needed
- Heat up 2 cups water until nearly boiling.
- Stir the sugar into the water until it's dissolved and pour it into a pitcher. Add the lavender sprigs and let steep for 10 minutes.
- While it's steeping, zest the lemons and juice them. Cut one of the lemons into circles. Add this to the pitcher as well as the cold water.
- Stir and serve over ice.
- Store in the fridge for up to a week.