Inspirations from a foodie, artist and landscaper: Lavender

Author: Carrie Johnson; Published: May 23, 2011; Category: New Mexico Plants and Trees; Tags: Culinary and Artistic Inspiration, Gardens, Plants and Trees, Residential Landscape; No Comments

Lavender- Très magnifique! Lavender is a lovely plant to provide at the access to your home so that it fragrances your guests entrance and exit to your abode. It can be planted in a more natural & xeric concept, strategically placed to provide the pop of color against a chamisa or Mexican evening primrose. Or perhaps in a more traditional layout, in front of boxwoods and Indian hawthorns with autumn blooming bulbs peeking up around the masses of silver and purple. Or, if you have some time on your hands, perhaps a Lavender Knot Garden… Too intricate? Try the very Zen art of Bonsai or Topiary on a potted Lavender plant.

Lavender has an amazing selection of different varieties, from the dwarf at 8 inches tall to the taller plants which reach 40 inches in height. Leaf, shoot and flower colors vary as well, from silver-white to blue-green to spring green, with yellow, white, pink, and varying purple flowers. Color, leaf texture, height and flower are all items of consideration when planting your Lavender. Not to mention hardiness zones.

Spring is such a trying time for us folks that cook with our landscaping plants. The garden veggies are just now sprouting (if the wind hasn’t blown them away), the fruit trees have months before they bear edible fruit, and your semi-evergreens are no where close to being mature enough to use. So, this is where last years “harvest” comes into play (or some hunting for the appropriate ingredients). English lavender keeps well in a mason jar of sugar: just bundle your lavender together, use a string to keep together and pour sugar around the flowers while holding your bundle down, so the stems are up out of the sugar and easy to pull out. Now you not only have preserved lavender to use, you have a fragrant sugar for your teas, cookies or cakes.

Don’t have any lavender on hand? Not a problem. Albuquerque Metro has an amazing lavender community; tea houses, co-ops, health food/herb shops, and weekend farmers markets where you can buy lavender wands, bags of dried lavender, lavender sugar and even Lavender scented teas.

Lavender is a wonderful herb to use in summer savories, but for spring I like to use it in sweet indulgences. Easter weekend I made a new recipe I found in my Tea Time Magazine for Earl Grey Lavender Cheesecakes. A table of 8 skeptics turned into 8 new lavender fans. I was so pleased!

Earl Grey Lavender Cheesecakes

24 mini vanilla flavored wafers

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream

1-1/2 Tablespoon Earl Grey-Lavender black tea leaves

1 tea. Dried lavender

2 (3-oz.) packages cream-cheese, softened

2/3 cup sugar

3 large eggs

2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

Garnish: Fresh Lavender

Preheat oven to 325°F

Line a 12-well mini cheesecake pan with paper liners. Place a wafer in the bottom of each cup. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, bring cream to boil over medium-high heat. Remove from heat. Add tea leaves and lavender to saucepan. Cover and steep for 5 minutes. Strain, discarding tea and lavender. Cool cream for 1 hour.

In a medium bowl, beat cream-cheese and sugar at high speed with an electric mixer until smooth, approximately 3 minutes. Add eggs, mixing until combined. Add cream mixture to cream-cheese mixture, mixing until combined.

Pour batter into prepared wells of cheesecake pan. Wrap bottom of cheesecake pan with aluminum foil to keep out water. Place cheesecake pan into a roasting pan. Carefully add enough water to roasting pan to come halfway up sides of cheesecake pan.

Bake until set, approximately 25 minutes. Remove cheesecake pan from roasting pan. Cool in pan for 1 hour. Refrigerate for 2 hours.

To remove cheesecakes, place a cutting board over pan, and invert pan and board in one motion.

Garnish with fresh lavender if desired.

Yield: 24 mini-cheesecakes

Prep: 10 minutes

Bake: 25 minutes

Cool: 1 hour

Refrigerate: 2 hours

Honestly, lavender is one of my absolute favorites. It’s all over my house. Hanging from lacy ribbon bows to dry, dried buds mixed with glass baubles in my candlescapes, bunched together in the linen drawers, stuck here and there in dried arrangements for a pop of color and fragrance, I even pour some dried buds into my lavender oil salt scrub for extra character and a froufrou spa like experience worthy of Provence, France (OK-I’m easily entertained).

C’est bien.