Cocktails

Blackberry Lavender Lemonade + Cocktail Recipe

July 28, 2018 No Comments Cocktails

It has been a long time since I’ve shared a Saturday Spirits post. But, this past hot weather and a challenge from Oregon Berries to create a recipe featuring blackberries and edible flowers got me thinking about a deliciously sweet, cold blackberry lemonade that would be fun to sip on a long afternoon playing outdoors.

Oregon blackberries are perfectly in season at this time of year, but thankfully, you can capture the fresh berry flavor all year long with the use of frozen Oregon blackberries. This recipe makes a tasty non-alcoholic lavender blackberry lemonade and tips for an easy cocktail created with this base recipe.

This post is in partnership with Oregon Berries. All opinions are my own. About Oregon Berries: The Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission focuses on promoting caneberries to multiple audiences, and supports Oregon berry farmers by fostering plant research and farming education initiatives. Find Oregon Berry brands on the Oregon Berries website!

In the past, I was not much of a fan of lavender in my foods or beverages. However, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to appreciate the subtle floral note as an addition to different drinks, meals, and desserts. The combination of tart lemons, sweet blackberries, and lavender is an especially good use of this edible flower.

Blackberry Lavender Lemonade

I started this recipe by making two different simple syrups. I made a lavender simple syrup and a blackberry simple syrup. Then combined the syrups with freshly squeezed lemon juice and water.

The simple syrups help sweeten the lemonade, but I do suggest sweetening to taste a bit as I tend to like things a bit more tart.

Lavender simple syrup:

I was able to find a beautiful lavender plant at our local farmer’s market. I’ll be planting it in my yard so that I can continue to make this simple syrup year after year.

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
3 heads of fresh lavender

Directions:

In a small heavy bottom saucepan place all ingredients. Cook over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved.

Cook for about 5 minutes and take off the heat. I let mine sit for 10 minutes to cool a bit and allow the flavor to meld a bit more.

Strain, reserving the liquid.

Blackberry Simple Syrup

If you’ve never had an Oregon blackberry then you may think of blackberries a bit differently than I do. I always associated blackberries with lots of seeds and a berry flavor, but just not worth the effort to cook with/eat due to the seeds. However, after eating Oregon blackberries it has become my favorite berry by far! Juicy, bold flavor and not the same seedy feeling that I’ve had experienced in the past. I’ve learned that Oregon is an ideal growing environment for berries due to the great combination of how the Oregon soil, air, and water work together. The berries that are chosen for Oregon Berries products are picked at the peak of ripeness and are frozen within 24 hours of being picked to maximize taste, juiciness, and nutrition.

Ingredients:

16 oz frozen blackberries
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Directions:

Put all ingredients in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan and cook over medium heat. Stir frequently so that sugar doesn’t burn.

Cook until the blackberries are cooked down and the sugar is dissolved. About 5-10 minutes.

Strain mixture, smashing all the blackberries and reserving the liquid.

Blackberry Lavender Lemonade

Makes approximately 1 64 oz pitcher

1 cup of lavender simple syrup
1 cup of blackberry simple syrup
Freshley squeezed juice of 12 lemons
4 cups water
Blackberries and lemon slices for garnish

Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and chill.

To create a tasty (and easy) cocktail with this mixture add in your favorite gin or vodka. This makes an easy summer cocktail for those who wish to imbibe.

See my other Oregon Berries recipes:

I love working with Oregon Berries because I already buy them and eat them on the regular. Getting to share my love with you is icing on the cake.

Can’t get enough blackberries? Check out the hashtags #oregonberries or #putaberryonit to see what others are doing with Oregon Berries!

A Well Crafted Pantry

Camping Food Hacks

July 26, 2018 1 Comment A Well Crafted Pantry

I’m currently dreaming about campfires, sleeping under the stars, and getting out in the beautiful Pacific Northwest outdoors. It is camping season! Camping for me is really a great way to reset and get away from it all. Some years we get on more camping trips than other years, but each time we make the whole process more streamlined so that next time we camp it is even easier and more relaxing. We have spent a lot of time and effort making camping easy, affordable, and fun each and every time. Last September I had the opportunity to share some tips on making your next camping trip a breeze!

In my nearly 20 years of working, I’ve worked in several restaurants. I’ve worked in many of the different positions from prep cook to bartender. My time in restaurants has taught me so many lessons that I use every day. I especially utilize these skills when camping.

Camping Hacks Learned from Restaurants:

Use a double bin system to wash dishes. This hack is actually one that I’ve gotten from a brilliant friend of mine and it is so simple that I can’t believe EVERYONE doesn’t do this! Working at a restaurant you learn to have a double sink (triple sink for many restaurants… but, for camping, two suffices). Go to your local dollar store and pick up two medium sized plastic containers with lids. Prep one of these as your soap basin with soap and water. The other as your rinse basin. You may have to change out the water a couple of times, but this way you’re not being wasteful and you get your dishes done in one go!
Make a menu. Restaurants work off of menus so that they know what to buy and prep. When camping you usually don’t have the opportunity to just run to the store when you want an ingredient. Planning a menu for each meal and sticking to it is the best way to make sure you have bought, prepped, and packed enough… but not TOO much food items. Don’t forget to plan for snacking!
Prep, prep, prep. Anyone who has worked in the back of the house of a restaurant knows that much of the day is spent prepping ingredients to actually use during the meal times. One of my first jobs including coming in early in the morning before we opened so that I could prep our freshly prepared onion rings. If we ran out of the prepped ones in the middle of dinner rush… well, we were out! When prepping for a camping trip I take my menu and think about how I am going to cook each item. If something needs to be sliced or chopped, and it won’t compromise the item to be cut early, then I’ll go ahead and slice those items and put them in a labeled container. If I only need a couple of cups of an item, but it comes in a large bag, I’ll go ahead and measure that out early and put in a labeled container.
Label well. It is super important to label your prepped items well so that you can find what you need while cooking a meal. Restaurants label EVERYTHING with what is in the container, the date, and usually the use by date. I similarily prep my camping ingredients with labels of what is in there and sometimes what date that I need to use those items (using my menu as a reference). That way if someone else is helping me cook, they know which items to grab! Similarly, make sure you have aluminum foil, plastic bags, and masking tape to properly wrap and label any unused or leftover food items.
Plan for leftovers. I try my best to make sure that we have just enough food for our party, and not too much… but, I also don’t want anyone to go hungry so I often will have leftovers. Many restaurants will use unused prepped produce/meat in a staff meal. I typically plan for a breakfast hash on one of the last camping days. I bring enough eggs for the meal, but then use any unused prepped produce/meat (hotdogs/brats are fantastic additions to a breakfast!) to accompany those eggs.

Read other posts on camping:

A Well Crafted Pantry

Blackberry and Edible Flower Salad with Honey Goat Cheese

July 24, 2018 1 Comment A Well Crafted Pantry

Temperatures outside are hitting the 90s and the idea of heating up our oven or cooking over a hot stove does not sound appealing at all. When I ran across beautiful spring greens peppered with pansy flowers at the local farmer’s market I knew a delicious salad would be in my future. I paired the greens and edible flowers with Oregon blackberries, honey goat cheese, honey baked walnuts and blackberry vinaigrette. The blackberry and edible flower salad was the perfect accompaniment to a baked salmon.

This post is in partnership with Oregon Berries. All opinions are my own. About Oregon Berries: The Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Commission focuses on promoting caneberries to multiple audiences, and supports Oregon berry farmers by fostering plant research and farming education initiatives. Find Oregon Berry brands on the Oregon Berries website!

Isn’t it beautiful? There is just something about beautiful food that makes it just that much more delicious. This salad was probably the best salad I’ve ever made. Even my kids ate it well. I sourced much of my ingredients from the local farmer’s market, but you can certainly find similar ingredients in your supermarket. Not all supermarkets carry edible flowers or microgreens, but I’ve been lucky to find them in natural food stores and specialty markets. Below I share a little bit about the ingredients that I chose to use and possible substitutions, followed by the recipe.

Greens: I used farmer’s market greens and pea shoot micro greens. You can use your favorite spring greens to recreate this salad, though, I’d stay away from too many bitter leaves such as arugula. This salad needs the sweetness that arugula (a favorite green of mine) just doesn’t have. the pea shoot micro greens give a sweet pea-flavor to the salad. It can certainly be made without, but we thought it was a nice touch in the flavor profile.

Edible Flowers: I chose pansies for this salad because they are not strong in flavor, but look so pretty! Pansies flavor is super mild, slightly sweet, and almost mint-like. Many other edible flowers could also work in this salad such as borage blossoms or violets.

Blackberries: As I am working with Oregon Berries, I chose fresh Oregon blackberries for this salad. I used frozen Oregon Blackberries to create the vinaigrette. You can find Oregon blackberries at many grocery stores throughout the berry season. Thankfully, you can often find them in the freezer section! I often find berries from Stahlbush Island Farms. Find other Oregon Berry brands on the Oregon Berries website.

Honey Goat Cheese: My favorite honey goat cheese is found at Trader Joes. Don’t have one nearby? Just mix goat cheese and honey together for a similar flavor.

Honey Walnuts: You can absolutely substitute a candied walnut here, but I liked the more subtle flavor of honey walnuts and they are super simple to make. I cover raw walnuts in honey and put them on a parchment sheet covered baking pan. I then roast in the oven at 350 for about 5 minutes. Do watch the walnuts as they can burn fairly quickly.

Blackberry Vinaigrette: You can substitute a raspberry vinaigrette from the store, but it is super easy to make your own vinaigrette and the blackberry flavor that this one imparts really makes for a delicious dressing!

The following blackberry and edible salad measurements are optional. You can build this salad to your taste and to your ingredient set. That is the best part about salads, in my opinion, you can really get such inspiration from recipes, but then create something that is truly unique to your tastes.

Blackberry and Edible Flower Salad with Honey Goat Cheese

Makes 1 large salad which could be enough for two dinner sized portions or four side-sized portions

Ingredients:

7 cups of spring greens
1 cup of pea shoot micro greens
12-18 pansy flowers
1/4 cup of honey goat cheese pulled into small chunks
1/2 cup of honey walnuts
1 pint of fresh Oregon blackberries, rinsed
Blackberry Vinaigrette (keep scrolling for recipe)

Directions:

Rinse all greens and dry well. Be careful not to bruise the greens in the rinsing/drying process. I tend to use a salad spinner with a paper towel in it to spin off the water after rinsing.
Toss the spring greens and micro greens together in your serving bowl.
Disperse the honey walnuts, blackberries, and honey goat cheese throughout the salad.
Top with pansy flowers.
You can pre-dress the salad, but I prefer to serve the dressing on the side and allow everyone to dress their own portion. The dressing will weigh down the pansy flowers if you pre-dress and some people prefer less dressing while others prefer more.

Blackberry Vinaigrette

This recipe makes 8 oz of dressing. You’ll need a small saucepan and fine mesh sieve to create this dressing.

Ingredients:

1 cup of Blackberries (frozen works best)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8 cup of water
1 Tablespoon of honey
freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
Salt & Pepper

Directions:

Put the blackberries, water, and sugar into a small saucepan and cook over medium-low heat on a stovetop. Stir occasionally. Cook approximately 10 minutes, or when the blackberries have been cooked down.
Strain the blackberry mixture through a fine-mesh sieve saving the liquid.
Mix 1/4 cup of the blackberry syrup, with the juice of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 cup of olive oil, tablespoon of honey, and 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar. Shake the mixture well. Add salt and pepper to taste, shaking well in between additions of seasoning.