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What ingredients are in shortbread cookies?

Shortbread is a traditional yumminess from Scotland that is about as simple as a melt-in-your-mouth dessert can be. It turns out traditional shortbread only has three ingredients: flour, butter, and sugar. Of course, I’m not one who sticks with “traditional” when it comes to sugar. So I started experimenting and below is one recipe I’m officially in love with.

Also, you’ll tend to find other ingredients in shortbread cookies beyond the 3 basic ones. It’s common to add a pinch of salt and some other flavor option like vanilla, lemon, maple (yeah, that one’s my favorite), and even chocolate.

While straight-up maple syrup will always be my favorite ingredient in shortbread cookies, my lilac recipe below is down-right spring-like delicious.

My Maple Shortbread recipe, along with so much more maple-infused goodness is in my book, Sweet Maple. Go here to read what folks are saying about it and to snag your bonuses when you purchase the book from anywhere (Amazon, a local bookstore, or anyplace your heart desires.)

But is it a cookie?

Most folks say yes, shortbread is a cookie. But it’s not crazy to call it a biscuit or a cake. On the other hand, it is crazy to call it by its true moniker… shortbread definitely is not “bread.”

As for why the “short” reference in its name? I kinda assumed it’s because of the short list of ingredients. But apparently I was wrong. The story is more interesting than that. While some say the name refers to all the shortening that used to be used to make it (I insist on butter instead) and others say “short” refers to the crispness or “shortness” of the final product.

The true story behind the name of shortbread? Ingenious Scottish bakers wanted to avoid paying taxes to big government who were requiring bakers to pay them a cut of all biscuits they sold. Apparently “short” bread avoided the biscuit classification.

Read this if you’d like another story of rebels, here in colonial America, who snubbed the king by installing my gorgeous wide-planked floors.

And you’ll love the story behind the history of the lilac bush.

Is it weird to add lilac sugar?

Not that I ever shy away because something is “weird,” but I know some of y’all will wonder if lilac shortbread is weird. So I did a quick search on what the Scottish add to their traditional shortbread. In some parts of Scotland, folks add caraway seeds to their shortbread and call it “Bride’s Bonn.” (Yeah, I have no idea about that name.) And in Edinburgh, folks like adding citrus peel and almonds to their shortbread around the holidays. But, no I didn’t see lilac as a traditional ingredient.

Since lilacs are native to Scotland, I’m here to say that this needs to change. Lilac sugar is a perfect addition to shortbread.

Is shortbread only for tea time?

While shortbread is pretty much known as the perfect accompaniment to afternoon tea, I see no reason to ever limit such a buttery deliciousness to one time of the day or one accompanying drink. Shortbread is perfect with a tall glass of fresh, cold milk. I’m told that some love shortbread with coffee and even a glass of wine in the evening.

But my favorite drinks to accompany lilac shortbread cookies?

If I want a warm drink, I love to fix this–one of my favorite cups of tea.

If I want a tall glass of ice-cold lilac blueberry homemade soda-of-sorts this DIY kombucha is absolutely perfect with lilac shortbread.

So if you know me, you know I had to play around with adding lilac sugar and maple syrup to shortbread. After I fell in love with these pretty ceramic shortbread molds, well, yeah, I’ll take one of these with pretty much any tea or kombucha, any day.

Lilac Shortbread

1 stick butter (or homemade butter–yum)

1/3 c lilac sugar (here’s how to make it)

1TB maple syrup (I highly recommend this syrup)

Pinch of salt (I love this salt)

1 cup flour 

1. Set out your butter, so it’s at room temperature before you begin. Also prepare your shortbread pan by spraying it lightly with cooking spray.
2. Cream the butter well.
3. Add lilac sugar and cream very well again.
4. Cream in maple syrup, scraping your bowl to incorporate everything well.
5. Add a pinch of salt to 1 cup of flour, then mix the flour into your bowl, a third of a cup at a time.
6. At this point I’ve never had everything totally, smoothly incorporated. You’ll have crumbles and small balls of sugary, floury butter. Scrape every last bit out onto your counter and knead it all together into a nice smooth ball (no need to add any flour at all).
7. Roll out into a flat circle roughly the size of your shortbread mold, place it on a plate, and lay the plate in your freezer for 10 minutes in your kitchen freezer or about 5 in a deep freeze. Or, if you forget about it (I’m not saying I’ve done this) you can let it sit in the mold a few minutes before you start working it in. This step (the putting the dough in the freezer part) isn’t necessary, but it will help the dough take on the imprints of your mold in a nicely defined way. So it’s just for show, folks. Take it or leave it. 
8. At this point, use the heel of your hand to work the dough down into your mold nicely. If you’re like me, you’ll think there is no way this is enough dough. It is. Well, unless you eat a few teaspoons of dough. (I’m not saying I’ve done this either.)
9. Now this step is NOT optional. You must prick the back of your dough with a fork in many places to let the steam escape and keep your shortbread from buckling while it bakes. 
10. Bake at 350 for 23-25 minutes. I like to err on the short side. Look for a light gold tint.  Then remove your mold from the oven and let it sit for 10-15 minutes. The longer side of this will, again, help pronounce your imprint of your mold. On the other hand, if you go too long, you’ll have crumbs you had to break out of your mold.
11. Turn your shortbread out onto a wooden board, giving the mold a few taps on the board to loosen the shortbread. Cut your cookies immediately, while warm. If you try to cut them after they’ve cooled, they will crumble on you.

More lilac deliciousness:

The secret to making amazing lilac sugar.

How to make (and wonderful ways to use!) lilac syrup.

How to infuse honey with lilacs for sheer, all-natural sweetness.

How to make delicious, carbonated Lilac Blueberry Kombucha.

And here are some other links that might interest you:

The recipe for my absolute favorite cookies of all time.

The Ultimate Guide to making your own Sourdough Bread.

Products I LOVE that can turn every kitchen into a homestead-kind-of kitchen.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst.” John 6:35.

 

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It turns out that lilac care really couldn’t be much simpler. Growing and caring for lilac bushes? Sounds like anyone can do this. No wonder my lilacs here around my old farmhouse have survived for a hundred years or more. Read here about my old, treasured lilacs. And then pick up a copy of my new book–Sweet Maple–for more information about lilac syrup. (aff link)

My newest lilac love? I planted these Bloomerang lilacs last fall, and I am very impressed.

Ed Laivo of NatureHills.com is joining us again today to answer all my questions about my beautiful lilacs.

You’ll want to be sure to glance at yesterday’s post too, about how and why to plant shrubs in the fall. But first, let me tell you a little about Ed in case you missed it yesterday…

Ed Laivo has over 40 years of extensive varied experience in plant production and nursery management. Ed is a fruit tree and edible landscaping specialist who has been involved with the introduction or reintroduction of many popular varieties of fruits including figs, Pomegranates, and Blueberry varieties to the home gardener, introducing techniques to better adapt these to the backyard grower. Ed has been a frequent guest on numerous TV and radio shows, as well as a popular writer, contributing insightful articles to many popular gardening periodicals.

–> If you order from Nature Hills, for a limited time you can take $20 off any purchase over $100 if you use this link and enter coupon code SR20. <–

So thanks so much for joining us today, Ed! I’ll start firing away my questions…

What’s important?

Q: What are the most important things I should I know about lilacs?

Ed’s Answer: Lilacs are fairly easy to grow, but you should know these few, but important, facts.

1. They need full sun. To enjoy the most flowers possible, always plant lilacs in full sun.
2. They need the right soil. It must be well drained soil, no exceptions.
3. They don’t need much fertilizer, if any. So always go easy on the fertilizer, being especially careful not to spray any high nitrogen lawn fertilizers near the roots of your lilac plants, as it can prevent flower production.
4. They love a good pruning every year. You’ll want to prune your lilacs right after the spring flowers have died. Finish removing the old flower heads and shorten up any stems that got out of hand.

Pruning

Q. Should lilacs be pruned often?

Ed’s Answer: It’s really only needed once a year. But in addition to the spring pruning of dead flowers, lilacs can also be renewal pruned. Simply remove the oldest, fattest stems, right down to the ground That will allow the nice, younger stems to remain and flower for the next year.  Pretty simple!

Lilacs in the fall

Q. You shared some great tips yesterday about planting shrubs (including lilacs!) in the fall, here in New England. Are there certain things I should do in the fall for my established lilacs?

Ed’s Answer: The hardiness of lilacs make it a simple plant when it comes to preparing them for winter. Your newly planted or your established lilac plants may appreciate a bit of mulch over the roots, but not up against the stems of the plants. That’s it. They should come through the winter beautifully.

Varieties of Lilacs

Q: Can you explain to me a little about all the different lilacs varieties so my readers can decide which ones are best for them?

Ed’s Answer: There are many different kinds of lilacs. The common purple and white lilacs and all of the French hybrid lilacs are super hardy and can be planted in very exposed areas without any scare of winter damage. This group of lilacs are larger growers and will appreciate having the room to grow. There are a huge number of selections offering a myriad of colors from white, to pinks, blue, lavenders, and the darkest of purples. These lilacs are excellent for including in windbreaks and shelter belts. Imagine a backdrop of evergreens with a monochromatic planting of one lilac, or maybe a mix of French hybrid lilacs in front. Brilliant.

The dwarf group of lilacs like Miss Kim and Dwarf Korean Lilacs bloom profusely on smaller plants and the blooms follow the French hybrids. Newer introductions included here are the reblooming selections that the new Bloomerang^® lilacs offer; this is the variety you chose, Michelle, and I love them. The Bloomerang^® selections bloom in spring and then again after they put on a flush of growth and the flowers come again later in summer or into fall.  A huge bonus!

Another variety of lilac that are easy to grow are the Canadian hybrids. Royalty, Miss Canada, and James Macfarlane are all beautiful shrubs that do not sucker like the French hybrids do. This group of beauties doesn’t even start blooming until the French hybrids are done blooming – a way to extend the lilac flowers available in your yard.

We would be remiss if we did not mention Japanese tree lilacs to round out the latest of the blooming lilacs. We grow some as multiple-stem shrub form and the Ivory Silk as single-stem smaller trees. The wildly showy creamy white flowers are spectacular.

Other shrubs in New England

Q: So I know I love lilacs. What other shrubs would you recommend I consider here on my New England homestead?

Another excellent group of plants for fall transplanting is Viburnum. Oozing with class and something to offer in all seasons, these shrubs flower in spring, fruit in summer and fall, and then offer a fall color you will love. Viburnums– typically known as large scale plants are great for screening and snow fencing–have evolved with many new smaller growing selections. They are definitely worth checking out.

Oh, and one more option for cold areas is a very old fashioned native known as Black Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa), and a few other species and selections.  The Black Chokeberry produces flowers in spring on last year’s stems, the clusters of black fruits ripen and are ready to harvest in late August. A distinguished fall color exhibiting orange, purple and red is first rate. Super hardy and easy to transplant in fall. The best part about Black Chokeberry is their super fruit quality. Their berries are over 340% higher in antioxidants than blueberries. You can freeze the berries and use them for baking, cooking, and tossing in smoothies. The flavor of the berries is somewhat astringent and would remind you of the flavor of red wine. Certainly one worth including in your edible landscape.

I truly can’t say “thank you” enough to Ed for taking time out to share his knowledge.

And I can’t recommend any online nursery resource other than Nature Hills, cause they’re amazing and they are they only one I will use from this point forward.

If you enjoyed my recent discoveries of all that lilacs can do for us in the kitchen even half as much as I did this last summer, you may want to check out Nature Hills. You too can have a box of wonderful lilac bushes on your own front porch by the end of the week.

How to make lilac cuttings last longer?

Once you have some established lilacs, you’ll want to fill your home with lilac bouquets every spring. But the blooms don’t last too long, so you’ll want to follow these tips to extend the life of your cuttings:

• Pick flowers in the cool of the morning or evening.
• Cut each stem at an angle.
• Choose stems that have most of the flowers open… lilacs open very little after being cut.
• Remove some of the leaves (I like the look of them in the vase, so I will leave some on) so the plant isn’t putting too much effort into hydrating the leaves.
• Place your cuttings in a bucket in a cool spot and  let the stems take up water for an hour or so, before the next step.
• Lay each stem on a solid surface and, using the handle of your clippers or a small hammer, pound the bottom inch or so of the stem. This pulls back the bark from the stem, so it can get adequate water.

How to make delicious lilac sweeteners:

Here’s one about lilac sugar.

Then there’s lilac simple syrup. And that post includes a full video tutorial.

Go here for how to download sweet printable gift tags for lilac simple syrup.

Make lilac shortbread

Oh, and absolutely don’t miss the lilac-infused honey.

And more lilac information:

Here I share my favorite-of-all-time Lilac Blueberry Kombucha recipe.

This post is where my lilac obsession all started. With one of my favorite history lessons ever.

And I can’t recommend enough that you check out Nature Hills Nursery for their amazing lilac bushes & more.

And watch this little video to find out the latest delicious way I’ve been using my lilac blooms!–>

Then check out another great use for lilac blooms (lilac-infused honey for my home-grown mint tea!)–>

The earth is full of His unfailing love. [And I truly believe the lilac is one proof of His love.] Psalm 33:5

 

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018 and then one of the Top Homesteading Blogs of 2019 as well.

 

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

 

And please follow along!

The post Growing & Caring for Lilac Bushes, tips from a pro first appeared on Souly Rested.

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I reached out to NatureHills.com and asked if I could still order lilacs and plant them in New England in the fall. I thought they might tell me I was crazy, but hey, they wouldn’t be the first people to declare this insight.

It turns out, one of their horticulturalists, Ed Laivo, got right back to me and told me that, “Actually, Michelle, fall planting can be very beneficial for you and the plants.” Score one for me! So I ordered my lilacs–which by the way was really hard. Cause I couldn’t choose! I was shocked at the choices there are. So next post I’ll delve into more details about lilacs specifically. But for today, I asked Ed if he would be willing to write up a guest post for you all, cause obviously I’m no expert on this topic. He not only was more than willing to help, but he had this post–and a really awesome one about Growing & Caring for Lilacs–to me in just a few days…

Did you catch that? Ed is visiting back here tomorrow. And if you’ve been following my lilac fascination this summer… if you’ve been thinking you might need a lilac or two… boy will you LOVE what Ed is sharing here tomorrow. But for now, here are Ed’s insights into fall shrub planting. Cause, well, fall has hit New England in full swing, Bill is marking new sugar maples that he will be tapping (read more here or you can pin the info here), and I still wanna plant some lilacs (so I can make more lilac syrup as well as maple syrup next year)!

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Ed:

Ed Laivo has over 40 years of extensive varied experience in plant production and nursery management. Ed is a fruit tree and edible landscaping specialist who has been involved with the introduction or reintroduction of many popular varieties of fruits including figs, Pomegranates, and Blueberry varieties to the home gardener, introducing techniques to better adapt these to the backyard grower. Ed has been a frequent guest on numerous TV and radio shows, as well as a popular writer, contributing insightful articles to many popular gardening periodicals.

Three Reasons to Plant Trees and Shrubs in the Fall

Thanks for asking me to write something up for your readers, Michelle.

Basically, there are 3 reasons that planting shrubs in the fall in areas with shorter growing seasons is a great idea:

1. Fall soil is warm.

For those of us in areas with shorter growing seasons and early cold snaps we often times forget about utilizing the warm soils of fall to generate new roots for new plantings.  Fall brings with it more plentiful rainfall and the plants installed now will not use as much water as they are shutting down for the year.  A good soaking at planting, and a few additional waterings will be all that is necessary before the ground freezes up.

2. Snow is the perfect insulator.

Planting in colder regions has the added benefit of snow, the perfect insulator.  There is nothing better than protecting your plants from the cold drying winds than a thick blanket of snow.

Remember that not all plants need to be cut down in the fall, in particular roses, grasses, and perennials.  Leave these plants uncut to catch the snow, which will better insulate the plants.  In the spring cut back the tops.

3. Head starts are always good.

Fall planting Lilacs will give them a springtime head start because they put on new roots in fall.  When spring rolls around, the plants grow like they have already been there for an entire season.

Three Tips For Planting Trees and Shrubs in the Fall

1. Protect trees from deer and rodents. Think about deer and rodent protection for your newly planted plants as well.  Young trees and fruit trees should have their trunks wrapped with metal screening or hardware cloth from the ground up to the first branches.  Screening prevents deer rubs, rabbits or rodents from eating any of the young bark off of your trees.  Screening is best as it allows the trunks to breathe and allows moisture to dry up.
2. Water new evergreens until the ground freezes. Young evergreens planted in the fall should be watered up to the time the ground freezes.  This is very important to prevent winter burn on evergreens.
3. Water new deciduous shrubs too. Deciduous shrubs planted in the fall will put on new roots too.  Water well when planting and as needed until the leaves drop off and the temperatures freeze.

Wow! Great stuff. A huge thank you to Ed for sharing his knowledge today.

So there you have it. My new lilacs are in the ground and looking happy. Follow along on youtube for an upcoming DIY video of my unboxing of these beauties and how I decided where on the homestead to plant them.

Next spring I’ll be making so many lilac delicacies I may wind up being called the “lilac queen” along with my title Jill Winger bestowed upon me years ago that, well, kinda “stuck,” of “maple queen.”

Go here to check out my book, Sweet Maple, (aff link) which bestowed that regal title. But truth be told I’m really not very regal in any area of my life.

Lilac sweeteners? Ummm, yes!

Here’s one about lilac sugar.

Then there’s lilac simple syrup. And that post includes a full video tutorial.

Go here for how to download sweet printable gift tags for lilac simple syrup.

Then there’s lilac pancake syrup.

Oh, and absolutely don’t miss the lilac-infused honey.

And I’m guessing you’d like these too:

Here I share my favorite-of-all-time Lilac Blueberry Kombucha recipe.

And this post is where my lilac obsession all started. With one of my favorite history lessons ever.

Enjoy fall!

Now get out there, enjoy a crisp fall day, and for goodness sakes, plant a beautiful shrub. Next spring you’ll be glad you did!

Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
    let the sea resound, and all that is in it.
Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
    let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.

Psalm 96: 11-12

 

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

And hop over here to find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post Can I plant shrubs in the fall? first appeared on Souly Rested.

In fact, the secret about lilac sugar? It’s so easy anyone could do this… which makes me wonder why it’s not more common. It’s so easy, folks, it almost seems silly to write about it. I could almost say “grab some sugar, add lilac blossoms and enjoy.”

And of course it makes me sad that lilacs are only in bloom for such a short window of time each year.

Why I love lilacs

Last spring, after I started making dozens of jars of lilac simple syrup, a jar of thicker lilac syrup, lilac-infused honey, and–my absolute favorite kombucha ever–lilac blueberry kombucha, well I started wondering if I could harvest lilac blooms for a longer season.

If you love lilacs (or a great history story!), you’ll love reading this detail I recently learned about lilacs.

Or here’s another great story about an old house. (I happen to love both–great stories and old houses.)

I discovered this awesome online nursery (affiliate link) that has a wonderful selection of some hard-to-find items, so I decided to snoop around their site and see if there were lilac bushes that bloom at a slightly different time than my own, so I’d at least have some blooming on the homestead for a longer window each spring. Well I could NOT believe it when I discovered that Nature Hills Nursery had something called a Bloomerang Lilac Bush. Folks, this lilac blooms multiple times every year! Hello! I knew I needed this lilac.

I couldn’t believe how wonderfully packaged my bloomerangs were when they arrived on my farmhouse porch. And they were so mature! I had them in the ground within a day and have been longing for next spring already. I can’t wait to see if they bloom their first year and how long and how often they bloom. I’ll keep you posted.

But I am sidetracked, as usual… back to the sugar…

How to harvest your lilac blooms

It all starts with lilac blooms, of course, preferably ones at the height of the season, lush and full. Gently remove the bloom from the stem. If you just give them a slight tug, the bloom slides right off, detaching from the little green sepal at its base, and leaving the yellow pistil behind.

I used a few cups of blooms, but it’s really up to you and how vibrant or subtle of a flavor you want.

How to make lilac sugar

I layered white sugar, interspersed with layers of lilac blooms, in a quart-sized Ball jar.

EDIT to add: I wrote this many years ago, before I overhauled my kitchen and removed refined sugar. See my list of favorite sugars I use in my kitchen now here, on my list of My Favorite Ingredients.

I left a few inches open at the top, to allow for daily vigorous shaking, and put a lid on tightly.

I think next spring I’ll experiment with substituting my maple sugar in place of the refined sugar, and I’ll let you know what Maple Lilac Sugar tastes like. In fact, leave a comment below if you try any alternative to white, refined sugar that you like in the lilac sugar; I’m trying to move away from using refined sugar when I can and substitute with all-natural sugar–especially maple–whenever I can.

I placed the quart jar on my counter, where I’d remember to give it a good toss-and-tumble shake every day for a week or so. It was interesting to watch the sugar and the blooms change over time. The moisture and oils from the blooms interspersed into the sugar, which of course is what makes it so doggone delicious, and the blooms shriveled up to almost nothing.

After about a week, I poured the sugar out onto a baking sheet and let it air dry, to get rid of some of the moisture, so it would keep well on my counter for months (if of course I actually manage to not use it all up in a few weeks). At that point I could have simply poured it back in my jar. But I decided to run it through the food processor and incorporate the dried lilac in better with the sugar. A few spins, an easy pour into one of my favorite mason jars through a funnel, and, voila, my own honest-to-goodness heavenly lilac sugar. Right there in a jar on my counter beside my maple sugar. (If you’d like all the secrets to making amazing maple sugar, you’ll want to snag my ebook, Make Maple Sugar. The only difficult part to all of this is choosing which one I’ll use each time I want a special cup of tea.

How to use your lilac sugar

Using it in my cup of tea is my favorite way to enjoy lilac sugar–especially camomile tea or wild raspberry hibiscus. In case you’re wondering, Stash makes my favorite raspberry hibiscus. (affiliate link.)

It’s crazy yummy in baking too–think lilac shortbread or lilac sugar cookies. Mmmmmmm. Hint: to keep my lilac sugar cookies extra chewy, I only use yolk, no egg white. Bonus: Check out my subscriber library for my favorite-of-all-time sugar cookie recipe, that of course uses lilac sugar. The recipe is in my upcoming book, Sweet Maple, too. (Not a subscriber? That’s super easy. Go here.)

Or sprinkle it on top of fresh-cut berries for an extra special dessert. (I love this lid with this insert that I use on my mason jars for my maple and my lilac sugars. Go here for more details on those and other fun lids I love on my mason jars.)

You could even give beautiful little jars of lilac sugar as gifts or wedding favors!

But honestly, if I’m gonna use it in baking, my first thought is dusting it over my grandmom’s blueberry cake.

Then Katie Koskewich, a reader in Manitoba, Canada, blew my mind with yet another great idea. She uses her lavender sugar (the next floral sugar i’m gonna make, for sure) in an egg wash. Just beat one egg and a few teaspoonfuls of lilac sugar and brush it over a pie before baking. Mmmmmmm. Lavender and pies. It doesn’t get much better than that folks. Plus, Katie and I, up here in the cold north, need a little bit of summer on our pies all winter long, am I right, Katie?

If you’d like to upgrade your lilac blueberry cake with maple, you’ll want the amazing recipe you’ll find in A Sweet Taste, one of numerous–totally free–ebooks you’ll find in my resource library, open all the time to all of my subscribers. Sign up here and download A Sweet Taste right away:

And speaking of unique sugars, I’ve discovered I love my stir-fry seasoned with maple syrup. Yeah, totally random, but we just had this for dinner and oh. my. goodness! I told Holly, my awesome editor, that I had to add this one in at the last minute to my manuscript for Sweet Maple.

And the stir fry was delicious with some homemade kombucha, but what isn’t? My favorite kombucha? I make it with lilac simple syrup. Grab my recipe for Lilac Blueberry Kombucha right here.

If you’re in the market for your own lilac bush, I absolutely cannot think of anyone I’d recommend more than NatureHillsNursery.com. As the world’s largest online nursery they have the most amazing selection of wonderful, heritage, hard-to-find-elsewhere plants and trees. Yet they’re as friendly as a neighborhood nursery, which works out great for me, since I haven’t even seen a neighborhood in almost 5 years, since we moved to rural New England. And their horticulturalists are super knowledgable and actually get back to you with in depth answers to your questions.

By the way, I’m certain many other edible fragrant flowers make great sugars, from lavender to roses, what have you tried? Please share! I am always in the market for a new obsession.

“Lilacs are exuberantly purple and perfumed, and cherry trees fragrant with blossoms. Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover – come to me!” Song of Solomon 2:13

Find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the One of the Top Homesteading Blogs.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to sugarmaking, to chicken care, to baking.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

 

The post The Secret to Making Amazing Lilac Sugar first appeared on Souly Rested.

Growing mint

If you grow your own mint, you’re half way there. If you’re buying a bunch of mint at the store, you can actually use that mint to start growing your own! Just be sure to place your leftover mint in water. Use your bottom leaves for making your tea (so the stems are stripped at the bottom). Then simply fill a jar about 2 in. with water, and place your mint in light sun until it takes root . Then plant your mint and you’ll have it forever. (If only it was so easy to have more honey!)

Enjoying an invasive deliciousness

When you plant mint, by the way, keep in mind that it is very invasive. I pulled up a few pieces to show you. Just look at how it sends out roots and then sends little shoots right up through the ground, all along those roots.

Mint will take over a bed or garden in no time.

So we keep our mint, along with most of our other herbs, each in their own containers. I harvested all our mint before taking a picture, but I thought to snag a picture of the chives before harvesting those.

Drying mint

Once I harvest it, I dry my mint in a pretty interesting way that works wonderfully for me. Check out this post for my super-easy, no-mess technique for drying any herb in a paper bag. Yep. Don’t knock it. It really works.

Once it’s dry (that part does require patience. often month’s worth of patience), I simply remove the leaves and store them in a mason jar. I love using a flip-top lid like this one for all my herbs.

Sweetening my mint tea

While I personally enjoy a cup of hot tea made straight up from mint leaves and water, for a special treat lately I’ve enjoyed adding a teaspoon of my lilac-infused honey. It was super easy to make and man-oh-man is it delicious! I explain more about it in the fb live video you can view at the end of this post.

But, alas, I didn’t think I’d be very successful at infusing my honey with lilac, so I only made a tiny, half-pint jar’s worth. So after just a few mere cups of mint tea, I’m gonna need to switch my sweetener. Mind you, mint tea is very good without any sugar at all, but when I’m sitting down to a cup of tea in place of dessert in the evening I love to make it a luxurious tea.

After this decadent lilac honey I need another luxury, so I ordered top-of-the-line tupelo honey from Florida and wow is this amazingly delicious. I recently learned some fascinating facts about this wonderful honey. I’ll have to share the details with you in an upcoming post. But for now, trust me, this tupelo honey is crazy yummy. I’ve gotten to know the husband-and-wife team who run Bee Wild Raw Honey–Bradley and Deanna–and they’re truly awesome. (Bonus, if you call to ask them a honey question, not only are they experts, but they’ll give you the answer in the friendliest southern drawl you’ve ever heard.)

Plus this honey is the best I’ve ever tasted. No joke. In fact, I never joke about all-natural sweetener. But y’all know that.

Not to mention that when I find a company I love that makes a product I can’t live without, well, I gotta share it with you all.

So if you’re in the market for the best honey I’ve ever tasted, look no further than this tupelo honey from a family-run business in Florida.

If you’d like to one-up the deliciousness of this tea, you will LOVE this video about how to make your honey lilac-infused. –>

Another favorite homemade tea

I recently discovered how to make my new favorite caffeine free delicious cup of tea. The crazy thing is that it tastes like coffee. Add a little maple syrup and my morning is instantly perfect. Okay, maybe not perfect, but very delicious. Go here to see how amazingly easy it is to make your own caffeine-free, herbal, coffee-replacing tea.

And if you want a little encouragement about just how good tea can be for you, you’ll love this article and the podcast episode there as well.

Buzzing around the farm

In addition to our exciting new addition on the homestead, we have lemons starting to grow (although they look like limes right now), some aMAAYYzing maple kombucha brewing (I think I’ve almost figured this out!), and cucumbers growing out of our ears…

But wait. If you’re not following on instagram or facebook, I guess you don’t know what I’m talking about when I mentioned our new addition. They’re my new source of crazy elation… and sweet honey of our very own.

We brought home 3 hives last weekend! We still have so very much to learn, but can’t wait to do so while watching these wonderful ladies pollinate our crops and make us some amazingly yummy, all-natural, liquid sugar. My deep, secret dream is to some day not have to buy any refined sugar. Now how sweet would THAT be?

See our instastories of OperationBeeRehoming here. Just scroll back a few until you see a few crazy people and some bee hives in the back of a pick up truck. (yep.)

And listen in to one big problem we had with the location we chose to place the hives here on this fb live video.

And check out this gorgeous tree (affiliate link) at NatureHills.com if you too would love to grow your own lemons!

Some of my favorite tea products? That’s super easy! My most treasured tea-related awesomeness is my Instant hot water tank that sits on my counter, silently and beautifully keeping perfectly boiled water at my beckon call at all times. (And, yes, these are affiliate links.) I’ve had this wonderful hot water heater for 6 years and can’t imagine boiling water any other way.

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Click on the video link here to see just how easy it is to make mint lilac tea and find out when it’s NOT good to compost your tea–>

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post Warning: You May Become Addicted to this Tea first appeared on Souly Rested.

This week, I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of a few thrilling things here on the homestead, and while I wait I figured it was very fitting to share this perfect gift idea with you, including the gift cards to help make it extra easy for you. (Keep reading.)

The Exciting New Arrivals!

“What are you having delivered this week Michelle?” you may ask… at least I hope you do, cause I wanna tell everyone about my excitement!

The first arrivals are coming by the thousands…. winged, nectar-eating, pollen-carrying wonders… 

Yes, this still-learning-how-to-do-it-right sugarmaker is now taking on beekeeping too. And I can’t wait! Our three hives are coming this weekend. And boy I sure hope I don’t mess this one up!

And The Lilacs Too!

The other arrivals are for the bees, well, kinda. I have three beautiful new lilac bushes on their way from NatureHills.com. This spring when my lilacs all peaked and then quickly dropped their flowers in less than 2 weeks time, my lilac blooms were gone long before I had made all the lilac syrup, and lilac sugar, and lilac honey that I had wanted to make. So I reached out to the folks at NatureHills to ask if there were lilacs that bloomed longer or later in the season that would also survive a tough New England winter.

Well boy was I surprised! Not only did an expert get right back to me the same day, but boy did I love her answer! I’ll share more of those details with you in an upcoming post, once my exciting new lilac bushes are here.

Btw, yes, after realizing just how fantastic this online nursery is, I signed up as an affiliate, meaning if you do decide to order from them, then they”ll send me a few pennies to say “thank you.” (And it will never cost you one penny more.)

But don’t get me wrong, my earnings probably won’t even pay for my grapefruit I had for breakfast this morning, so I would never mention them to you if I didn’t love their customer service and their gorgeous plants. And every tiny way you support our homestead means so much to us. Seriously. (But isn’t it crazy how expensive a grapefruit it these days? But I digress…)

Wanna know more about floral infusion?

If you wanna try your hand at Lilac Simple Syrup, you’ll find all those details here.

Learn how to make irresistible lilac sugar here.

For directions to infuse some Lilac Honey, go here.

And read directions for making Blueberry Lilac Kombucha right here.

Give the Gift of Lilac Simple Syrup

If you have any fragrant, edible blooms in your yard (nope, they don’t have to be lilacs), you can easily make some simple syrup for gift giving. Watch the instructional how-to video here.

After making the syrup, I just tied a bloom to the syrup jar with a piece of twine that I also looped through the gift card. You can download and print a handy page of the gift cards I created. I downloaded it to my Resource Library, so it’ll be there anytime you have the urge to put together some drop-dead gorgeous, delicious gifts. (Not subscribed? That’s easy peasy. Just go here.)

The day I was making my lilac simple syrup happened to be my neighbor’s birthday, so I designed a little card with some recipes that call for lilac syrup. Then I realized you all may like to do the same, so I designed a page of cards. I simply printed the page on card stock paper, cut one card out, folded it in half, and wrote a birthday greeting to Paige on the front of the card. Then I just punched a little hole and threaded it on the twine.

She was out on the lake when I dropped over with her little gift, so I left it on her table on her back deck. Hopefully she liked the little surprise and it added a little sweet deliciousness to her day.

Other Simple Syrup Information

You can make simple syrups and infused sugars with numerous fragrant flowers. Go here to find 3 different recipes for Forsythia Syrup (it’s really yummy).

And experiment with other sugars when making your syrup. In fact, if you use a liquid sugar the process is much easier, as I explain here.

I love to use this tupelo honey to make simple syrups. Bonus, tupelo honey NEVER crystalizes. Isn’t that awesome? I despise hardened honey that I can’t get out of the bottom of the jar.

If I didn’t make my own maple syrup I’d use this syrup or this one.

And if I’m using “regular” sugar I avoid refined sugar all together and go for this option.

If you have any questions about plants and shrubs that will grow well in your neck of the woods, reach out to NatureHills.com.

If you want a sneak peak at the lilacs that are on their way to me, you can see them here.

Or check out all the amazing lilacs that they grow at NatureHills.

Around the Farm this Week

Selah celebrated her first birthday this week! I shared her birthday festivities over on Instagram, if you wanna catch that excitement. (And read about our calf’s birth–and my major mistake–here.)

The barn is a lot less crowded this week, and it’s a little lonely lately, now that we’ve rehomed most of the kitties. But we have kept one gorgeous, sweet girl. Watch this facebook live video  if you’d like to meet this sweet ball of smoky gray fur and get the whole scoop on why we had to rehome her momma, Reepicheep.

And join in on our facebook talk this week all about her–right here–and help us pick the perfect moniker for this cuteness!

How do you like to use your simple syrup?

Do you have a special way you love to use your floral simple syrup? Please share; maybe I can add it to my gift card page!

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera on my Resources page and even purchase your own here.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

And hop over here to find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018.

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

And please follow along!

Please take a second to follow along here on SoulyRested to catch up on a few of my memorable mishaps, discover fascinating things about my centuries-old farmhouse, glean a little parenting/homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, or enjoy the inside scoop on the secrets other legit homesteaders might not tell you.

I hope my focus always encourages you, because simple joys require hard work. Let’s face it, we all need all the encouragement we can get! As soon as you subscribe (in the box at the end of this post), you’ll have immediate access to my Resource Library, which includes many useful printables–including ones about crafts and how to clean a braided wool rug–my FREE EBOOKs, and amazing recipes for things like whoopie pie cookies, maple sap switchel, and my grandmom’s perfect pie crust.

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post Making (and gifting) floral simple syrup first appeared on Souly Rested.

Because I’m in love with my heirloom lilacs here around my 200-year-old farmhouse, and because I love experimenting with anything lilac flavored, my first attempt at honey infusion was a given. I knew I wanted to try lilac-infused honey. Mind you, your choices of what to use to infuse your honey are as endless as a hard day on the farm is long. And your list of honey to choose from may be just as long, but if you don’t have a local source for your honeyj (local is always best!), I can’t recommend this honey enough. The folks over at Bee Wild Raw Honey bottle up pure joy, and their customer service is top notch, delivered with a sweet southern accent. Plus, it’s one of my favorite small businesses that I recommend.

See the end of this post for more yummy inspiration about how to infuse your honey.

If you love a good little story and fun history lesson in one, read the fun story about the lilacs around our old New England farmhouse.

Looking for amazing lilacs of your own? Look no further than the amazing selection they have over at NatureHills.com… these guys are seriously the best!

Wanna know an online source I just found and am in love with as a perfect place to unearth heirloom-kind-of treasures that are perfect for an old farmhouse? Check out Antique Farmhouse or click right here.–>

This post contains affiliate links. See my full disclosure here.

Add a fresh, fragrant bloom

To make any floral honey, simply start with a fragrant bloom that’s growing fresh, and at its prime. Strip a few blooms off the stems and lay them, fresh, in a jar of honey, mix them in, and seal. Well, that’s what I did when I was learning the ropes of infusing honey. I later read that fresh blooms can lead to mold. I never had any problem with that, but possibly other blooms may, so for my infusions today I always use a mesh straining bag, like these, to soak my blooms in my honey, then I can easily strain them out. I may try drying some blooms to make future jars of infused honey that way as well.

Bonus, if I dry the flowers now, I can make floral infused honey for an amazing sweet burst of summer in the dead of February, when I’ve forgotten that summer is even a thing.

But it’s that simple. Toss some blooms in, close up your jar, and give it a few weeks or longer to sit quietly tucked away in a cabinet. The result may be the most amazing honey you’ve ever smelled, tasted, or stirred in your morning cup of tea.

If you have a lilac bush, be sure to read up on these 4 simple tips every lilac owner needs to know–tips from a professional horticulturalist who offered some great wisdom here, on SoulyRested, recently.

If you’d rather watch than read… here’s my youtube video on this topic:

Strain your blooms

When I use my lilac-infused honey, I just scoop a teaspoon right into my tea, mindless of the blooms that are in the spoonful. They quickly float to the top and are super easy to strain off with one swipe of a spoon across the top. Of course I could also use a small stranger and pour it into another cup, catching the blooms in my strainer.

On the other hand, eating lilac blooms may have many healing benefits… they’re beautiful as decoration on pastries and are definitely edible. So if you don’t mind the addition to your tea, drink up the good stuff. From what I understand, eating aromatic flowers is great for your gut. They increase blood flow in your GI tract and therefore promote healing. Raw lilac flowers may also help constipation and flatulence. (Yeah, somedays, we all need to eat some flowers folks. Just a fact.)

The blooms will continue to make the honey stronger in flavor if you let them seep in your honey, which I’m fine with. But you can also take a few minutes to fish the blooms out of your jar of honey once your flavor is just right for your taste. Or, as I explained above, I now love using these simple bags for the blooms, so I can easily take them out when it’s time.

Choose your tea

Except in black teas, which mask the floral fragrance with their strength, I find I love my lilac-infused honey in any and all herbal teas I’ve tried it in, especially the fruity varieties and chamomile. But my hands-down favorite combination is a soothing cup of lilac mint tea.

I simply steep a small tea strainer filled with mint, which I dried from the garden, and cover it with hot water for a few minutes. Then I add a teaspoon-full of my lilac honey.

I imagine it’s extra yummy to me because every last drop of flavor grew right here on our homestead. It’s amazing that something so delectable is so very simple.

Read this post if you’d like a fool-proof, piece-of-cake easy way to dry your herbs or flowers. You just need a paper bag and a little bit of patience.

And check out this amazing family-run bee company–Bee Wild Raw Honey–and the most delicious honey in the world (in my humble opinion)… their tupelo honey.

If you love lilac-everything the way that I do, you’ll enjoy these other posts too:

How to Make Lilac-Infused Kombucha

How to Make Lilac Pancake Syrup in 9 Simple Steps

How to Make Lilac Simple Syrup

How to Make Lilac Sugar

What I Learned About My Old Farmhouse Lilacs

A list of the items I couldn’t live without in my farmhouse kitchen.

Think bigger

While I tried my experiment with a small jar of honey, next time I’m moving up to much bigger! This lilac-infused honey would be wonderful to bake with! (For that, I will definitely just leave the flowers in the honey.) And I can’t imagine how happy my mouth would be if I indulged in this floral sweet goodness lavished on toast or biscuits!

Try other combinations

Of course your options of what you can use to infuse your honey are almost as limitless as the amount of projects one finds around an old homestead.

Try any of these:

— dried herbs

— dried spices

— dried flowers.

— loose dried teas

Clover honey tends to be a nice mild choice, and heaven knows we all have some of that nearby, so that’s a great one to start with. Even better, try a lively combo of a few herbs, spices, or flowers and make your own unique infused honey blend.

Whatever infusion you pursue, please let me know what you make and how it turns out! I’d love to continually add information to this post and, of course, new combinations of yummy infused honey to my pantry.

Eat honey, for it is good, Yes, the honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. Proverbs 24:13

Pin this for later!

Click on the image below to pin this post.

Many readers often ask what camera I use to take the images you find here on SoulyRested. I love my Nikon; you can read more about my camera on my Resources page and even purchase your own here.

Glance at my Resource Page if you’d like to get a glimpse of all the supplies I use and recommend for everything from gardening, to homeschooling, to chicken care, to nature journaling, to maple syrup making.

And hop over here to find out why SoulyRested was considered to be one of the Top 20 Must-Read Homesteading Blogs of 2018.

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

And please follow along!

Please take a second to follow along here on SoulyRested to catch up on a few of my memorable mishaps, discover fascinating things about my centuries-old farmhouse, glean a little parenting/homeschooling insight from this momma who’s been failing at the effort for almost 2 decades, or enjoy the inside scoop on the secrets other legit homesteaders might not tell you.

I hope my focus always encourages you, because simple joys require hard work. Let’s face it, we all need all the encouragement we can get! As soon as you subscribe (in the box at the end of this post), you’ll have immediate access to my Resource Library, which includes many useful printables–including ones about crafts and how to clean a braided wool rug–my FREE EBOOKs, and amazing recipes for things like whoopie pie cookies, maple sap switchel, and my grandmom’s perfect pie crust.

If you already ARE a subscriber, just hop over to the Resource Library here and enter your personal password. (If you don’t remember your password, no fear, we always include a personalized reminder in every Thursday email, “Hard Work, Simple Joys.”)

The post Who knew flowers in my honey could be this delicious? first appeared on Souly Rested.

Okay, so that’s a little heavy handed. But I can promise that the few minutes of your day that you sit back with a glass of this in hand you will be smiling.

If you make it yourself, instead of paying a hefty price tag at the store, your wallet will be happy.

And, score, your gut health will improve. Win-win-win.

You’ve already seen little glimpses of my newest total obsession if you’ve been following on facebook or instagram. And I gotta tell you, I can’t believe how easy it is to make.

The Michelle of just 12 weeks ago would have told you you were crazy if you thought this lady would ever make kombucha. Would ever add one more thing to her plate right now. Would ever actually be successful at any new thing she added to her plate right now.

In fact, that Michelle of 12 weeks ago would have immediately shut down the conversation if you even mentioned the word “fermenting” to her. Fermenting is for cabbage, and leads to fowl sauerkraut (sorry if you’re a fan of the stuff… I just never could bring myself to like it).

But boy was I wrong. Well, about the kombucha. Not about the sauerkraut. (Again, no offense meant to those of you who support fermented cabbage. I’ll just never join your club.)

— DISCLOSURE: This post contains a few affiliate links. —

Not a cookie-cutter drink.

So, it dawned on me last week–with Independence Day smack in the middle of the week–that fermenting your own drinks is an independent, democratic kind of thing. No one else’s kombucha is going to taste exactly like mine, and I love that. 

I mean seriously who wants a cookie-cutter drink when you can have new excitement every time you open a bottle? So let freedom ring, celebrate independence, and brew up some kombucha!

It’s so good for your gut.

After I happened upon enough articles about gut health, and eavesdropped on enough conversations about home-brewed kombucha, and bought enough of the yummy goodness at the store (which equaled just 2 bottles; this stuff is crazy expensive!), I asked a kombucha-creating friend where I sign up. And I’m only half joking. There is an underground Kombucha Klub around the globe that is devoted to this liquid goodness. Kombucha Superfans share tips, invite each other over to show off their kombucha headquarters that take up an entire corners of their kitchens, and cut up magical SCOBYs to give a piece to newbies, like me 12 weeks ago.

And that’s exactly what my neighbor Angela did for me… she willingly split her SCOBY to see it live on and prosper in my kitchen, improving my family’s health one delicious drink at a time. (Don’t know what a SCOBY is? Yeah, neither did Michelle of 12 weeks ago. Don’t worry, I’ll explain more in a future post.)

If you know you want to start brewing this amazingness for yourself, GO HERE for your source for the healthiest organic SCOBY you’ll find anywhere.

As for the gut health, it’s complicated to explain. Who am I kidding? I don’t even understand the intricacies of it. But I can tell you that the SCOBY is good bacteria. When you let it sit and grow in your kombucha, taking in more good bacteria from the air around it (that’s why you don’t put a lid on your brewing but rubber band a piece of breathable fabric on top), your drink becomes kinda miraculous, filled with really good stuff your gut desperately needs.

Kombucha goals.

My next kombucha goal (sounds like it should be a hashtag, no? #kombuchagoals)? I’m gonna start my own SCOBY. From scratch. Yeah, I may totally fail, but I want to see if I can make maple kombucha. Since this SCOBY has been feeding on refined sugar since its infancy, I’ve read that changing it’s food source may kill it, so I’ll try to start my own, originating it on maple syrup… we’ll see. I very well may totally, completely fail. Follow along here, and on facebook, instagram,or pinterest. I gab, post, and pin about kombucha pretty often these days.

But for the past 12 weeks, I’ve been experimenting with all kinds of flavors and trying different things to see if I could get more carbonation in my kombucha. (Still learning in this area, so that will have to be a future post.)

UPDATE: Not only have I figured out how to build up amazing carbonation, I’ve learned how to use all kinds of different teas for first and second ferment, developed some amazing recipes for kombucha, and learned the differences–and advantages–of continuous brew kombucha, over batch brew… I am totally in love with (and hooked on) kombucha. It’s changed my life.

I put all of this knowledge, and so much more, in my just-released latest course: Simple DIY Kombucha. 

Please if nothing else hop over here and download my totally free printable that you will refer to every single time you make kombucha–totally no strings attached and no need to give me your email. Download that helpful printable from this page, right here.

If you want to brew your kombucha with amazing organic blends that are made specifically for kombucha,  I can not recommend the teas over at Farmhouse Teas highly enough. Just hop over right here and glance at this amazingness!

I haven’t met a flavor I didn’t like.

While I have yet to meet a bottle of this stuff that I didn’t like, I have to say I have a hands-down favorite. No matter how it turns out… no matter if it I open it too early, too eagerly, and it has zero carbonation… no matter if I put too little blueberries or too much lilac syrup… seriously, blueberry lilac kombucha is my hands-down favorite drink right now.

Here are the recipes for 5 flavors that are on the top of my list right now (in case you didn’t notice, yes I am a blueberry fanatic).

You’ll need the first round of fermented kombucha, which requires a SCOBY and 1- or 2-gallon glass jars to ferment in, and 32 oz jars with seals like these.  Choose a flavor below, add the ingredients to a jar, then fill with your first round of fermented unflavored kombucha (leaving a little headroom on each bottle).

Hop over to this article I wrote on The Prairie Homestead site all about how to make a first ferment.

If you wanna know about starting a SCOBY on your own, I write about that here. Then, if you’d like to know exactly what items I wouldn’t want to be without every week when I’m making a new batch of delicious kombucha, you definitely want to glance at this list of my favorite things.

But here are five of my favorite flavors.

For the first one–my absolute favorite kombucha flavor I’ve ever tasted–you’ll wanna read this post about how to make lilac syrup. But don’t worry, you can use almost any fragrant blooming flowers in your yard right now (not just lilacs) to make a delicious floral simple syrup to flavor your kombucha (or your tea… or your lemonade…).

And all of these recipes are for a 1/2-gallon second ferment of kombucha.

1. blueberry lilac

1/4 cup lilac syrup (I show you how to make your own lilac syrup right here) and 1/4 cup frozen blueberries. If it’s lilac season, I like to toss in some fresh blooms too.

2. lemon lavender

2 tablespoons lemon juice and 1 teaspoon dried lavender (This is the best priced organic lavender I’ve found anywhere.)

3. blueberry ginger

1/4 cup frozen blueberries and roughly 1 tablespoon finely diced fresh ginger

4. blueberry pineapple

1/4 cup frozen blueberries and about 1/4 cup of scrap pieces of fresh pineapple and even the pineapple core which would typically just get thrown way, or composted.

5. pineapple ginger

scrap pieces of the pineapple and pineapple core and chopped pieces of ginger, maybe 1/8 cup of each?

What’s your favorite kombucha flavor? Please share in the comments! I’m always looking for new brewing inspiration.

And speaking of inspiration… oh my goodness, you need to check out these amazing kombucha teas right here… there is sooooo much to love!

“Meet” my latest kombucha in this recent fb live… you’ll never guess what this SCOBY is made from! Not following SoulyRested on facebook? Hop over and follow along; I’d love to see ya’ there!

Other Articles about DIY Kombucha You’ll Love:

Seven Favorite Kombucha Recipes

How to Make Kombucha with Maple Syrup

How to Improve Your Gut Health, with DIY Kombucha

DIY Kombucha… What Does it Really Cost to Make it Yourself?

“If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.”  Mathew 6:31-31 (The Message Bible)

 

I’d love to connect!

To find me in some other neck of the woods, just click any (or every!) icon below:

The post Lilac Blueberry Kombucha–you should totally make this first appeared on Souly Rested.

Lilacs: Their perfume is sweetness personified. And their purple blooms tumbling over each other on my window ledge? They’re beauty personified.

Lilacs even offer a wonderful history lesson to old-home owners. But my daughter who inspired my whole homesteading lifestyle (the one who was fascinated with the homestead mentality long before we moved to 14 rural NH acres) has taught me to assume everything has multiple uses, and I started wondering if savory smelling lilacs could be turned into a sweet dessert. So we delved into an ambrosial experiment. And I have to tell you making syrup with lilacs is so much easier than our extravagant maple syrup production.

To start, we clipped a vase-worth of blooms. Turned out this was about twice as much as we needed, so the rest are now gracing my mantle.

As we gathered, we found numerous others were enjoying the lilac delicacies as well.

We separated the purple blossoms from their green sepals and yellow pistils.

They slid off effortlessly; in only a few minutes we had a cup full.

We boiled water, added sugar and the blooms, and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

The syrup is delicious in our tea, and we plan on trying it on ice cream for tonight’s dessert and on pancakes one morning soon. I do wish the syrup was a thicker consistency, but I’m pleased with the subtly sweet taste.

I also learned that adding a small handful of blueberries will turn your syrup a beautiful deep purple color. Without the berries, our syrup was a grayish-purple hue.

This post contains affiliate links.

Would you like to plant some lilacs of your own? Or maybe you have one but would like more variety? (I recently planted Bloomerang lilacs that bloom multiple times throughout the summer!) If you click that image above, it’ll show you the huge variety of lilacs that you can order from my favorite nursery, NatureHills. I am impressed with everything I’ve ordered from them.

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My subscriber library includes my favorite go-to recipe ever–Grandma’s Cheesy Egg Souffle–along with an easy-to-print copy of my Lilac Syrup recipe. Now that’d be a seriously good brunch: Grandma’s souffle and pancakes with lilac syrup!

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Signs of spring

A 12-inch yellow ball brings one daughter joy six days out of every week. . .

Bare, muddy feet make another feel elated every afternoon. . .

Delicacies in the mud are a routine breakfast for happy hens. . . .

And clothes once again snap in the breeze and warm in the sun most mornings. . .

Spring has most definitely danced her way into our rural neck of the New England woods. But my lilacs heralded her arrival back in February. With multiple feet of snow still on the ground, the green buds promised warm weather would again return to our homestead. Last week those buds were transformed into deep-purple promises.

And yesterday’s blooms opened and glistened under raindrops.

Of course our new bees LOVE lilacs, so it’s only fitting that I love making lilac-infused honey, no? If you’d like to try your hand at making some, trust me it’s oh-so easy! Check it out right here.

Also, be sure to read up on these 4 simple tips every lilac owner needs to know–tips from a professional horticulturalist.

How to Make Lilac Syrup

While the blooms are wonderful in their own right, they also make sweet, delicious Lilac Syrup.

For directions, click here:

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The history of the lilac

They bathe four different areas of our farm with deeply perfumed color every May (by the front door, the horse stables, the front stone wall, and the back stone wall).

But the ones by the front door are my favorite.

I linger in their shade and wonder who else may have done the same over the past two centuries. Indeed, these lusciously blooming branches may be from the original lilacs planted in that very spot. We learned some fascinating facts about the lilac bush when a daughter and I completed a simple page about lilacs in our Backyard Book. (Our Backyard Book has become a treasured way my children learn about natural science and it’s also become a treasured family heirloom. If you’d like to know more, I wrote all about it in this post.)

You see, when our home was built (circa 1800), it was customary to have lilacs by the front door so one could enjoy their scent when entering.

They were a new, hardy shrub brought over from England at the time. They lost favor as time went on. Many preferred newer varieties of flowering bushes that offered longer bloom time.

When I came across this tidbit of history–that it was popular to plant fragrant lilacs by the front door–I immediately inspected the old photograph we inherited with our home, dated 1900. There is definitely a tall, leggy bush at the front, right corner of the cape, in the same spot where our branches of purple joy stand today.

Scroll down a little more to view a video explaining the history of the lilac on our old homestead and showing off one of our lilacs in bloom (not to mention the crazy adorable barn kitty).

And if you’re in the market for a lilac bush, I can’t recommend Nature Hills enough. I truly think they may have the best lilacs you’ll find anywhere. And they’ll ship them right to your door! Cause they’re the largest online nursery with the best customer service ever.

Wanna know the the bitter truths (and joys) of owning an old farmhouse? I wrote about those here.

Wanna know where you can unearth some rustic farmhouse treasures of your own? You will LOVE this site I just discovered–Antique Farmhouse.

Being thankful where God has planted me

When I cut a sprig and place it in a carmel-colored antique bottle that I uncovered on our property’s old midden, I wonder about all the hands that may have nurtured my lilacs through the years and the hands that emptied my bottle and tossed it aside.

And I am thankful.

I am thankful that today it is my hands that have the pleasure of working on this homestead, where God himself has planted me.

The story of our old farmhouse & Old English lilacs

We also learned that Lilac Syrup is super easy to make and extra yummy. Read more about Lilac Syrup in this post. And follow over on facebook for fb lives, like this one all about our lilacs:

I have planted you like a choice vine of sound and reliable stock.  Jeremiah 2:21

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