Lavender's Blue, dilly dilly

Lavender's Green,
When you are King, dilly dilly,
I shall be Queen.

I found a recipe in an old Better Homes & Gardens Magazine that sounded intriging, it also reminded me of a song my Gram would sing to me.

Lavender Blue Lemonade
Ingred;
3c. blueberries
Juice from 4 lg lemons- about 1 cup- save rinds
1/2c. sugar
4c. boiling water
1t. dried lavender buds- I put mine in a tea ball

Gently mash the blue berries in a 4qt heat proof pitcher or bowl. Add in the lemon juice, sugar and stir. Steep the lavender in the hot water for about 5min. Add to your lemon mixture, stir to dissolve sugar. Add in the reserved lemon rinds, cover and chill over night. Pour through a mesh strainer and serve over ice.

This was pretty tasty, the kiddos & I enjoyed it. I liked the lavender & lemon flavors together, next time I want to try this without the blueberries.

Quick & Easy Strawberry Dessert

For a quick and yummy dessert the kiddos and I cubed up some leftover Angel food cake and topped it with a mixture of sliced strawberries, lemon balsamic vinegar, & sugar. Then drizzled a little straight cream on top. Yummy :)

Herb Tea, Sweet Tea, Sun Tea

A few weeks ago I started looking online for a Sun Tea recipe, I found TONS of fun Tea Recipes. I got a gallon glass jar from my Mommer a couple weeks ago and today finally gotta around to making my Sun Tea. So I thought I would share that recipe and a few of the others I found when I was searching.

Here's is my-
Sun Tea Recipe
Ingred;
1 gallon fresh cool water
8 chamomile tea bags
1/4c. dried hibiscus flowers in a tea ball
1/2c. honey

I put all the ingred. except for the honey into my gallon jar, put the lid on tightly and placed outside in the sun for about 5 hours (you can leave it all day, I was to excited to leave it any longer :) Remove all the teabags and tea ball, stir in the honey serve over ice and store the rest in the fridge.

Very tasty, I love the color the hibiscus gives this, and chamomile will always be my favorite tea.

Here are a few of the other recipes I found-

Sweet Sun Tea by TMarie

• 14 bags Tea
• 1 cup Shugga

Tie your 14 tea bags together. Place in bottom of a 4 quart clear container. I use a BIG restaurant pickle jar. I just cleaned it really, really well & let it soak with baking soda to get the vinegar smell out.

ANYWAY… fill the container with cold water, put the cover on and place outside in the sun for @ 3 hours.

Bring inside, take out tea bags, pour in a cup of sugar, more or less depending on your taste. Chill for a couple of hours or pour over ice & enjoy!

Southern Sweet Tea
Put one cup of sugar and one cup of water in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and remove from heat. This is called simple syrup. Add this to a gallon of tea to sweeten it. The sugar melts in the water so you don't have that "gritty" taste from the sugar.

To make tea:
Put 8 regular or 4 family tea bags in 8 cups of water. Bring to a boil and immediately cover and remove from heat. Let sit for 15-20 minutes. Pour into your pitcher with the simple syrup and add water to fill your gallon container.
Now that is Southern Sweet Tea.

Russian Sun Tea
6 Orange Spice tea bags (Celestial Seasonings or whatever)
2 Lemon tea bags
1 Cinnamon stick
3 whole cloves
1 gallon water
2 teaspoons sugar

Add sugar to water in a clear, 1 gallon container. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add tea bags; leave strings and tags hanging outside jar. Add cinnamon stick and cloves. Place in sun for about six hours or so, then remove tea bags, cinnamon stick, and cloves, and refrigerate.

Serve with ice in tall glasses. Garnish with a slice of orange.

Actually, this tea brews equally well in the refrigerator, if you want to save time. A good way to make it is to brew it overnight in the refrigerator, then you have fresh tea in the morning!


So there you go enough Ice Tea recipes to get you through the last few days of summer :) :)

Summer Delight Fruit Salad

Salad

Ingred;
1 pkg strawberries, washed & cut in quarters
1/2 lb red grapes, washed
1 mango, peeled & cubed
3 kiwi, peeled sliced

Dressing

Ingred;
1/4c. pomegranate juice
1T. balsamic vinegar
1t. instant tea mix

Stir together all of the fruit, whisk together your dressing ingred. and pour over top. Serve immediately. If not serving immediately keep the dressing separate until ready to serve.


This was really, really good, I could eat it everyday! Seriously, I am already planning to make this again to go with our dinner on Sunday, we are having company over and this will be a great side dish.
I used Blueberry pomegranate juice, a lemon balsamic, and a raspberry ice tea powder. I think raspberries and apples would also be delicious in this & If you didn't want to use tea you could substitute a powdered lemon or orange drink mix.

The Girls liked it so much they had a mini-fork war to get the last pieces out of the bottom of the bowl. Ya gotta watch out for the little one, she's quick.