Eating from the garden

With summer on the horizon, delicious veggies are all over the place. Whether you grow them yourself, pick them up at your local farmers market or grocer your body will thank you for eating a wide variety and color of vegetables. Eating a variety of colors is very important, think red, green, purple, orange, yellow, and white.

Fruit and Veggies, More matters campaign has a website dedicated to telling people how to increase their fruit and veggie intake. They are a non-profit group, Produce for better health, that partnered with the CDC to spread the word about healthy eating. We all know fruits and veggies add important nutrition to our diets, but it can often be difficult to know what to eat. There is so much mixed information out there. Here a link to the website offering simple ways to add more fruits and veggies to your day.

Here are some tips for what to do with your summer veggies!

• Zucchini! So easy to grow, and by far one of the most rewarding crops to grow. It is the gift that keeps on giving all summer. 

• Cut it into strips and grill it on the BBQ
• Slice into half moons and stir fry with other veggies
• Cut into medium thickness circles, bread in an egg wash flour batter and pan fry them... so good! 
• Stuffed Zucchini: Cut in half lengthwise, scoop out seeds and some of the inside. It can now be stuffed with sausage, rice, other veggies and so much more! 

• Cabbage. Not as easy to grow in the home garden because the white butterfly moth loves to eat the cabbage leaves, but a very cheap veggie at the store and extremely versatile. 

• Coleslaw: chop it up into thin strips and cover it with a delicious coleslaw dressing. An easy one is mayo, vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar and other spices of your choice. 
  
• Stuffed cabbage: Par boil the whole head of cabbage until barely soft to be able to pull of the giant leaves. Stuff each leaf with whatever you choose. I love sausage, rice and veggies. You then wrap them up like a burrito and place them in an ovens afe pan. Cover with sauce of your choice: marinara, gravy, my favorite is a garlic, ginger, soy sauce. Then bake until it smells amazing, probably only 20 minutes or so.  
• Cut into slices and stir fry with your other favorite vegetables. 

• Tomato. Another rewarding crop if you can get them to flower at the right time. This season has been perfect tomato weather with lots of sunshine and heat. 

  • Slice and eat alone or on anything
  • Tomato sauce
  • Salsa
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Lavender Syrup

A friend recently asked what plant I resonated with most, or in her words, "what was my spirit plant?" We happened to be picking lavender at the time on the side of the road. I'm not sure if lavender is my spirit plant, but it is one of my favorites with so many uses.

Lavender Syrup

• Ingredients:
• Fresh lavender
• Organic Cane sugar or honey
• Filtered water
• Cheesecloth/small strainer 
• Pot with tight fitting lid 
• Glass container with tight lid to store lavender syrup

1. Gather lavender 
   
2. Pull off the flowering tops and gather into a bowel - no need to wash unless very dirty because going to simmer and then strain it. 
3. Combine a 2:1 ratio of water to lavender in a pan with a tight fitting lid.
4. Simmer for 15 minutes, never bringing the lavender to a high bowel, keep it at a low rolling boil. (Do not remove the lid! You want to keep the essential oil in the pot and if you take the lid off it escapes in the steam)
5. Remove the pan from heat. Cover the lid of the pan with an ice cold towel or run cool water over the top to gather the essential oil that has condensed in the top of the pan.
6. After the lid is cool, lift it off and shake whatever liquid has condensed in the lid back into the pan.
7. Your house should now have the aroma of a magnificent country lavender field.
   
8. Line a larger strainer with cheesecloth and strain out the lavender flowers. Strain your lavender liquid into a large glass measuring cup so you now how much liquid you have obtained. The liquid should be a beautiful purple-gray at this point. (The scraps can now be composted and will add great nutrients to your compost.)
   
9. Add your measured liquid back into the pot and turn on medium heat. 
10. The sweetener of your choice will be added now. The sweetener is not only for flavoring and thickening of the syrup but also for preserving the syrup. 
1. The sweetener is added in a 1:1 ratio of sweetener to lavender liquid. Play around with the ratios to suit you best. It can go down to a 1:2 ratio of sweetener to lavender liquid if you prefer that better. 
11. Put the lid back on to trap the delicious smelling essential oils and allow the syrup to thicken. 
12. Once the syrup has thickened to your liking remove from heat and allow to cool. 
13. Place into a pretty glass container or tight sealing jar and store in the fridge

Lavender Lemonade (Cocktail) 

• Ingredients:
• Fresh Squeezed lemonade
• Carbonated water
• Lavender syrup
• Optional: Liquor of your choice (Vodka is delicious)

This is a rough recipe that needs to be altered to individual tastes and depending on how sweet your lavender syrup turned out. What tasted best to me was fill a tall glass with a few pieces of ice, an ounce of vodka, an ounce of lavender syrup, half a glass of lemonade and then topped off with carbonated water.