Lavender Love: May It Grow

You know who your friends are when you are in trouble. Especially the kind of trouble where you totally put your foot into your mouth. They stand by you and send you recipes for ingredients that you have only heard of till now and brushed aside with "probably tastes like soap. Or potpourri."

The lovely and enterprising Suganya of Tasty Palettes is one such - and only - friend. All the others threw their heads back to guffaw in delight, put their feet up, and settled down to watch the spectacle. The recipe Suganya sent me was for a Lavender Coffee Cake but as luck would have it, my oven has been on the blink for what seems like forever. There's nothing wrong with the oven but the circuit trips after 8-10 minutes of use. The resident electrician has had no time until late yesterday to take a look at it. He thinks he has nailed it and I hope he has. If he has, this post may grow. If he hasn't, it won't. So the long and short of it is that I haven't been able to use the recipe she sent me. But this is what a good friend is all about. She doesn't wait to be asked; she goes ahead and does.

Thank you, Suganya!



The Joy of Cooking doesn't have too many recipes with lavender since cooking with these flowers is a relatively new phenomenon, aside from using it to make herbes de Provence. I could have used lavender mint tea but it's already been done by Andrea for the GYO event. Then I found what I was looking for - a no-bake no-cook recipe - in Beautiful Breads & Fabulous Fillings by Margeaux Sky. Perfect to reciprocate the love: to Suganya! And, to Bee, without whom I would never have done anything with lavender flowers.

Lavender Mint Love Sauce

• 2 cups of plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup softened cream cheese
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1.5 tbsp dried lavender flowers
• 2 tbsp fresh mint, chopped
• 1/8 tsp red chilli powder
• salt to taste

1. Combine the yogurt, cream cheese and honey in a large bowl and mix well.
2. In a smaller bowl, combine the lavender, mint, chilli powder and salt.
3. Add the herb mixture to the yogurt mixture ad mix well.
4. Serve at room temperature with sandwiches or as a topping on toasted bagels.

Notes:

• This is adapted from the recipe in Beautiful Breads & Fabulous Fillings. That recipe has more ingredients like green tea, sage, basil and even curry powder. I preferred to stay with simple flavors and went with lavender flowers and mint but added a dash of red chilli powder for some zing.
• The next time I will use much less honey or skip it entirely. I prefer the subtle sweetness that these lavender flowers bring to the sauce instead.

This is my entry to Grow Your Own, made with some mint from my backyard, some lavender flowers from Bee's backyard and a lot of love from Suganya.


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