Apple & Bay Leaf Syrup

It's taken me a while to get Day 3 discovery sorted, but I feel like it's been well worth it. This is our bay leaf tree. This is it actually trimmed back. Ian cut it back last week and we literally had a bin bag *full* of bay leaves. We gifted a branch to our friends, and we really felt sad to get rid of them all, but alas we had to throw the rest away. 

I love our bay leaf tree. 

When we bought our house a year ago we had no idea it was there. There were quite a few plants in the garden, a few overgrown and this massive tree. And then all of a sudden one afternoon when we were gardening we saw it a little closer, smelled the leaves, and realised--yes, we were going to be blessed with awesome casseroles for the rest of our time here.

So, I was surfing the Martha Stewart website for wedding ideas and happened across her recipe for pear cocktails (random, I know). Part of this recipe involved making a herb syrup. I'd read about herb syrups and herb vinegars in my herb book recently and thought it would be a really good idea of preserving some bay leaves. So here's what I came up with:

My Apple & Bay Leaf Sugar Syrup:

About 25 fresh bay leaves

1 apple, sliced in to wedges

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Clean jam jar

I gave the bay leaves a good wash and a pat dry with kitchen towel, and measured out a cup of sugar.

 

Then I chopped a green apple in to wedges. They were on the side as I was washing the bay leaves and I thought a crisp tangy green apple would go quite nicely with the warm taste of the bay leaves.

Measured out a cup of water in to a saucepan and added the sugar, heating until all the sugar had dissolved. I didn't necessarily boil the water, I just got it hot enough for the sugar to dissolve.

Added the bay leaves! And my kitchen smelled amazing!! It's worth making JUST to smell this moment. I couldn't believe how strong it was, it was so nice.

Added the apple wedges. And then I turned the heat off and left it for 45 minutes - 1 hour. Martha leaves hers for 30 minutes. 30 minutes is plenty. When I make this syrup again I'd probably stop at 30 minutes, but I didn't have my jam jar ready so I actually had to run around the house frantically trying to find an empty container and then, when I couldn't find, one, grab my Cherry jam out of the fridge, put the end of it into a glass and wash the jar out. Oops :-)

Once it was finished steeping I drained out the bay leaves/apple and poured it in to my freshly washed jam jar. Sealed, Martha says you can keep it up to 1 month in the fridge. I'll let you know in a month if she's right. :-)

What did I do with this new Apple & Bay Leaf Syrup you ask? Well, made up a cocktail of course! :-)

I love a good gin & tonic, so I decided to make an Apple & Bay Gin Cocktail:

1 tbs Apple & Bay Leaf Syrup
45ml Gin
4-5 ice cubes
Top with soda water
Garnish with a couple of slices of apple

The syrup is stronger than I expected it to be, it has a really nice taste to it. I also tried it over a fruit salad and it was quite nice, but it definitely needs light fruit (I drizzled it over strawberries, grapes, and apple). It has quite a heavy taste. It is going to be really nice in stews and soups, and I think it will be perfect for using as a sugary topping on roast ham and roast pork.

But for today, it made a nice summery drink for sitting outside in the afternoon sun. Thank you, bay leaf tree! :-)

Day 2: Thyme Salad

These are my newest herb plants: Thyme & Marjoram. They are loving the summer sunshine and I've been reeeeally wanting to use the Thyme for something. I'll be honest, I have no idea what Marjoram tastes like and am a bit daunted by it; I think I'll save it until I'm at least a week in to my posts. I was reading that it is actually closely related to Oregano and it is always what is in the Herbes de Provence dried mix I always use in casseroles. So I might build up a good idea for a good beef casserole and make my own fresh herb mix with marjoram.

But for now, tired after a *long* day at work, all I could muster was a salad to go with dinner. And while I was thinking this was pretty pathetic being only my second post when I tasted it I was shocked at how delicious it was. My photos don't do it justice. It was really simple to make: Romaine lettuce, chopped cucumber, parma ham, a handful of fresh Thyme chopped up, rapeseed oil and a bit of salt & pepper. It is sooo good!

Day 1: Mint & Strawberries

Mint is the biggest herb plant in my garden. So I thought I would try to make something new with this one to start my herb-a-day blog going. It would be far too easy to post about a generic recipe I always make (ahem, mojitos!) so I wanted to try to combine it with something I've never tried before:

Strawberries!!!

Okay, okay -- so there aren't actually any strawberries growing on my plants yet, even though I'm reeeally proud of the fact that we are up to 9 plants this year in our little patch from the 2 we began with three years ago. :-D So I did go out and buy some local strawberries so I could make a really interesting new summer recipe I found in this month's County Living Magazine.

Here is the recipe:

Strawberry & Cucumber Salad

1 large cucumber
250g strawberries
juice & zest of 1/2 lemon
2 1/2 tbs olive oil
1 pinch caster sugar
1 tbs fresh chopped mint leaves
1/2 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

And here it is finished! It all smelled so lovely when I was making it, the kitchen felt so summery. The ingredients I wrote above are actually half of what it says in the magazine and I misssed out the zest of the lemon by accident. I am also a wimp and couldn't bring myself to put an ENTIRE chilli in it. We didn't have any red chillis in the house so I put a 1/3 of a green chilli in instead, which added a tad of a kick but not so much that it effected the taste too much. So it ended up being quite nice and mild and sweet and very minty. I even took the other half to work and had it for breakfast this morning.

Day 1 = Success! :-)

Hooray for Herbs!

I've recently arrived back from the best camping trip ever. We were out in Devon, sleeping on the boundary of Exmoor National Park and all I could be was was happy: by nature. There's nothing in the world that gives me the same kind of peace and contentment as being outdoors. Before we left, my fiance and I started our summer gardening and now I'm back and I've checked on my veggie seed babies (and planted some new sunflower seeds) all I want is to bring some of the Devon countyside to our backyard. I love the outdoors, and I love plants, and I love love love the gorgeous sunshine yellow Rapeseed fields that made me smile the entire way out of Devon.

So, I decided this morning to make a bit of nature my everyday and start growing herbs. I know, just a tiny bit of everything that is the plant world, but herbs are already a big part of my diet. I looove using herbs, and I love that they are like a miniature campsite in my culinary world.  There are so many plants out there too though that we usually never even think of as herbs. Violet and rose petals, watercress, Aloe Vera, the list is endless. So I'm challenging myself to take a herb challenge: a different herb use or tidbit of herb info everyday. Not just in food, but in gardening, and cosmetics, and teas, medicine, and everything I can possibly think of! And hopefully by sharing it with other people I can bring a bit of nature to everyone else's world too.