lavender

I moved the Lavender plant over next to the echinacea and against the wall. It has plenty of purple blooms on long stems now, and the scent from them is heavenly. My kids always beg for a flower which I cut and they run around waving them about and the the whole apartment smells like lavender.

Then made a cooking experiment. I tried this recipe for Lavender shortbread cookies. It's fairly simple and only has a few ingredients: butter, sugar, flour, lavender. That's it! Perhaps a bit of confectioner's sugar, if you want to make the glaze (which I did). Doesn't need vanilla or salt, because the lavender flowers give all the flavor.

First step is to blend the lavender into the sugar.

When you've got it well mixed in the sugar turns kind of gray. The scent is heavenly. But always makes me think of soap! Nice soap, though.

Something went wrong with my timing or setting on the oven; my cookies came out far too dark for shortbread. They still tasted good but I do want to try this again and watch them more closely, baked lightly I bet it's amazing.

Will have to wait awhile though because the Lavender plant also has sickly looking leaves and dying lower foliage, I recently cut a lot of that one back too...