Sweet Dreams

This evening Mrs. E. and I will entertain a very old friend of her family’s and my in-laws. Dinner will be a savory summer pork and vegetable stew from the French Farmhouse Cookbook. I’ve got most of the ingredients on hand and will start cooking in a few hours.

Dessert, however, always presents a problem here at the manse. Neither Mrs. E. nor I has a sweet tooth, preferring a last glass of Champagne and some cheese to ratchet up the calorie count. But in summer, you really can’t go wrong with ice cream.

So we’ve taken a page from our recent bed and breakfast stay and will serve fresh peaches in lavender honey alongside of some vanilla bean ice cream. The lavender had to be cut back a bit in at least one spot as it was getting difficult to get in and out of the back door.

Yes, we made our own lavender honey. And with the purported calming effects of lavender, we hope it will lend us sweet dreams as we head into the hazy, hot, humid days of late summer.

The Easy and Elegant Life Lavender Honey.

1/4 fresh lavender blossoms, rinsed
3/4 local honey. Use a mixed rather than a pure honey as the local pure stuff can be strtongly flavoured depending on the surrounding countryside with which the bees contend.

Prepare a double boiler. That’s a 1970’s fait-tout from Le Crueset and a dutch oven in the photo above. Over a medium high heat, bring the water to a high simmer. Pour in the honey and lavender blossoms. Stir every couple of minutes. Simmer for anywhere from a half to one hour, but no longer. Longer than one hour, it will become too perfumed. Strain through a fine mesh sieve.

Wonderful over sliced peaches for breakfast, pancakes, waffles, ice cream, or mixed into berries and cream or tea.