Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Peach - Lavender Cobbler
I was amazed by the number of guests at the lavender festival wanting to pick lavender for cooking. I know cooking with herbs has become popular but I didn't realize how many were using lavender.
Here are a few tips on cooking with lavender:
In cooking, use 1/3 the quantity of dried flowers to fresh. The key to cooking with lavender is to experiment; start out with a small amount of flowers, and add more as you go.
NOTE: Adding too much lavender to your recipe can be like eating perfume and will make your dish bitter. Because of the strong flavor of lavender, the secret is that a little goes a long way.
The lavender flowers add a beautiful color to salads. Lavender can also be substituted for rosemary in many bread recipes. The flowers can be put in sugar and sealed tightly for a couple of weeks then the sugar can be substituted for ordinary sugar for a cake, buns or custards. Grind the lavender in a herb or coffee grinder or mash it with mortar and pestle.
Flowers look beautiful and taste good too in a glass of champagne, with chocolate cake, or as a garnish for sorbets or ice creams. Lavender lends itself to savory dishes also, from hearty stews to wine-reduced sauces. Diminutive blooms add a mysterious scent to custards, flans or sorbets.
NOTE: Do not eat flowers from florists, nurseries, or garden centers. In many cases these flowers have been treated with pesticides not labeled for food crops.
Harvesting Fresh Lavender - Harvest flowers as you would fruit, selecting those that look most perfectly ready, with the fullest color, and passing over any that seem wilted or less ripe. The fresher the flower, the more flavorful its taste, so pick your flowers as close as possible to food preparation time. Stem flowers may be put in a glass of water in a cool place until you are ready to use them. All blooms should be thoroughly rinsed. Immerse them in water to remove any insects or soil. Then lay the flowers gently on paper or cloth towels and dab dry, or gently spin dry in a salad spinner. If necessary, layer blooms carefully between moist paper towels in the refrigerator until meal time.
Here is one of our favorites.
Serves 8
Ingredients
Filling
4 1/2 pounds peaches—peeled, pitted and diced (10 cups)
2 1/2 tablespoons instant tapioca
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Topping
1 teaspoon dried lavender blossoms
Ingredient Info: Dried Lavender blossoms are also call culinary lavender buds. They are not the florets or stems.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons rolled oats
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons sugar
Directions
1.: Preheat the oven to 400°. In a bowl, mix the peaches, tapioca, sugar, salt and lemon juice. Transfer the filling to a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
2.: Using a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle, grind the lavender to a powder. In a bowl, combine the lavender, flour, oats, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or two knives, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the 1/2 cup of cream and the buttermilk; stir until the dough is just moistened.
3.Using two spoons, form 3-tablespoon mounds of the topping and arrange them evenly over the peaches. Brush with cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake the cobbler for 50 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling. Let cool slightly before serving.
Here are a few tips on cooking with lavender:
In cooking, use 1/3 the quantity of dried flowers to fresh. The key to cooking with lavender is to experiment; start out with a small amount of flowers, and add more as you go.
NOTE: Adding too much lavender to your recipe can be like eating perfume and will make your dish bitter. Because of the strong flavor of lavender, the secret is that a little goes a long way.
The lavender flowers add a beautiful color to salads. Lavender can also be substituted for rosemary in many bread recipes. The flowers can be put in sugar and sealed tightly for a couple of weeks then the sugar can be substituted for ordinary sugar for a cake, buns or custards. Grind the lavender in a herb or coffee grinder or mash it with mortar and pestle.
Flowers look beautiful and taste good too in a glass of champagne, with chocolate cake, or as a garnish for sorbets or ice creams. Lavender lends itself to savory dishes also, from hearty stews to wine-reduced sauces. Diminutive blooms add a mysterious scent to custards, flans or sorbets.
NOTE: Do not eat flowers from florists, nurseries, or garden centers. In many cases these flowers have been treated with pesticides not labeled for food crops.
Harvesting Fresh Lavender - Harvest flowers as you would fruit, selecting those that look most perfectly ready, with the fullest color, and passing over any that seem wilted or less ripe. The fresher the flower, the more flavorful its taste, so pick your flowers as close as possible to food preparation time. Stem flowers may be put in a glass of water in a cool place until you are ready to use them. All blooms should be thoroughly rinsed. Immerse them in water to remove any insects or soil. Then lay the flowers gently on paper or cloth towels and dab dry, or gently spin dry in a salad spinner. If necessary, layer blooms carefully between moist paper towels in the refrigerator until meal time.
Here is one of our favorites.
Peach - Lavender Cobbler
Ingredients
Filling
4 1/2 pounds peaches—peeled, pitted and diced (10 cups)
2 1/2 tablespoons instant tapioca
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Topping
1 teaspoon dried lavender blossoms
Ingredient Info: Dried Lavender blossoms are also call culinary lavender buds. They are not the florets or stems.
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons rolled oats
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup heavy cream, plus more for brushing
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons sugar
Directions
1.: Preheat the oven to 400°. In a bowl, mix the peaches, tapioca, sugar, salt and lemon juice. Transfer the filling to a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
2.: Using a spice grinder or a mortar and pestle, grind the lavender to a powder. In a bowl, combine the lavender, flour, oats, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon zest. Cut in the butter using a pastry blender or two knives, until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the 1/2 cup of cream and the buttermilk; stir until the dough is just moistened.
3.Using two spoons, form 3-tablespoon mounds of the topping and arrange them evenly over the peaches. Brush with cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake the cobbler for 50 minutes, until the topping is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling. Let cool slightly before serving.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Crafting with lavender
Creating Your Own Lavender Sachet!
To create your own sachet, rub the heads of dried bundles between your hands, collecting the blossoms on a clean surface. Sift the brown flower bracts out of the mixture leaving only the purple fragrant buds. Depending on the variety, some lavender falls off the stem soon after it is dried (eg: Sachet, Provence, Dark Supreme) and others stay on the stem better and are good to use for dried bouquets (eg: Royal Velvet, Grosso, Hidcote Giant, Glos Bleu).
Making a Lavender Wand
Materials: 13 or more fresh stems of lavender (we recommend Grosso), (any odd number greater than 13) each at least 12 inches tall.2 yards of satin or other ribbon, 1/4 inches wide. Patience... allow yourself about 40 minutes to do your first wand. Be very forgiving of yourself... like all skills, this one improves with practice.
1. Harvest the lavender early in the day, and make sure that the flowers are not damp. Strip all the leaves from the stem.
2. Line up the bottom of the flower heads and tie them gently together with the end of the 2 yards of ribbon. See picture 1.
3. Turn the bundle upside down and gently bend each stem down around the blossom heads. You can facilitate this step by scoring the underside of the stem section that is being bent with your fingernail. When all of the blossoms are "in a cage of stems" the long end of the ribbon should be pulled out of the cage, the short end tucked inside.
4. Line up all of the stems evenly around the blossoms, making sure that they do not overlap. See picture 2.
5. Start to weave the ribbon under and over the stems. Gently pull on the ribbon to make sure the weave is tight. The most difficult part of this process is in the first two rows of the weaving. On the second row you should be going under the stems that you had gone over on the first row. See picture 3.
6. Continue weaving until you have covered all the flowers. You can use a toothpick to push any buds that stick out back into the weave or rub them off. Wrap the ribbon around the "neck" of the wand and tie a slip knot.
7. Trim the stems to the same length and continue to wrap the stems until you reach the end and glue the ends. Tie a bow around the neck of the stems.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Busy beezzzzzz
Its been a busy week on the farm. Wheat and lavender have been harvested, the straw has been baled and the lavender is hanging in the drying barn. The lavender market is still open for visitors on Saturday and Sunday through August and I am busy trying to keep up with orders.
I have been trying to find some time to write thank you notes to all of our lavender festival volunteers and a note to the press about the sale of our Royal Velvet Lavender plants to benefit the Skaneateles Historical Society expansion. Over a 3 weekend time frame we sold 400 plants. A check for $1000 was presented to Joan Thompsen during the festival. When I placed the order we thought we would be planting at least 300 of them. We now realize that others love lavender as much as we do. We will definitely order more for next year.
Don't flowers make you smile.
Come on Blanket and George its time to go back to the barn. Mom is looking for you.
I have been trying to find some time to write thank you notes to all of our lavender festival volunteers and a note to the press about the sale of our Royal Velvet Lavender plants to benefit the Skaneateles Historical Society expansion. Over a 3 weekend time frame we sold 400 plants. A check for $1000 was presented to Joan Thompsen during the festival. When I placed the order we thought we would be planting at least 300 of them. We now realize that others love lavender as much as we do. We will definitely order more for next year.
Presenting Joan a check for $1000 for the Skaneateles Historical Society expansion.
Bees at work
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Lockwood Farm to appear on WSYR channel 9 Bridge Street
Home Garden Club from Syracuse spent a very hot day on the farm learn how to grow, prune and harvest lavender.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Lockwood Farm is featured in the July/August issue of CNY Magazine.
Last year we were approached by CNY Magazine reporter, Linda Bien about our story behind our lavender business. Linda and photographer, Michelle Gabel spent time us on the farm on a beautiful afternoon last year discussing why and how we grow lavender. The article has given us time to reflect on how far we have come. When I met and married my husband, Gary I didn't know where I belonged on the farm. I didn't grow up on a farm but certainly loved gardening and animals. I have to admit I was a little intimidated. I didn't know if you could teach this old dog new tricks. Since then I have learned how to drive a tractor, bale and unload hay, become a sheep herder, bottle feed and cared for baby lambs, become a drywall mason, studied dirt (closely), mastered driving a skidsteer, become educated on erosion and become a member of a giving community, just to name a few. Although my life has taken a big change from wanting to being a Radio City Rockette when I was a child. I have grown so much that I certainly wouldn't change a thing. I love my life and isn't that what it's all about.
Growing lavender has given me a sense of belonging on the farm. It started with a wedding bouquet but has developed into something more. Sharing and educating people on the life of a farmer. It's hard, but oh so rewarding!
Growing lavender has given me a sense of belonging on the farm. It started with a wedding bouquet but has developed into something more. Sharing and educating people on the life of a farmer. It's hard, but oh so rewarding!
We hope to see you at our Finger Lakes Lavender Festival, July 10th & July 11th.
Check out our other website for more information. http://www.fingerlakeslavenderfestival.blogspot.com/
Friday, July 2, 2010
It's Fabulous Friday!
White lavender (Edelweiss) almost in full bloom. It should be ready for the lavender festival.
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