Jardin du Soleil Lavender Farm, Bath & Body Products

Interested in cooking with lavender?  Add Jardin du Soleil certified organic culinary lavender in your spice rack and start exploring the flavor of lavender in a wide variety of foods, ranging from desserts to roasted vegetables!  Check back to this blog weekly for added recipes. Use our Lavender Recipes or purchase "The Lavender Cookbook" by Sharon Shipley.

Simple ingredients full of flavor is what this salad has to offer! The rich goat cheese calms the flavors of basil and onion, while the baby greens and nectarine offer a bright refreshed flavor. Try it for your own lunch on a sunny spring afternoon, or multiply the recipe to serve the whole family at dinner. The dressing contains Jardin du Soleil's culinary lavender.

mmm... Scrumptious!

Ingredients (1 serving)
1 nectarine - pipped and sliced
a handful of baby lettuce leaves
a few young basil leaves
thin sliced red onion to taste
2 thin slices of goat's cheese

Dressing
2 tsp vinegar
1 tsp Salad Oil
a pinch of minced Jardin du Soleil Culinary Lavender
a pinch of sugar
chopped mint leaf to taste

Here at Jardin du Soleil we are preparing for the upcoming season. Presently we are planting perennials and annuals for the “hot” borders in the garden. We have almost one hundred perennial seedlings started in the greenhouse; at least half of them have sprouted!  This should add nice color variances in the gardens around the lavender fields.

Also, don’t forget to mark your calendars for our 14^th annual Sequim Lavender Festival. Follow the link to download this year’s festival brochure. We’re looking forward to seeing you here!”

Since the temperature has dropped a bit, this recipe for Rice Pudding with Jardin du Soleil Culinary Lavender should hit the spot!

Ingredients

½ cup rice

2 ½ cup whole milk

1 cup boiling water

2 tablespoons Jardin du Soleil Culinary Lavender

2/3 cup sugar

2 ½ tablespoons cornstarch

Instructions

Put milk, sugar and Jardin du Soleil Culinary Lavender in a small pot, bring to boiling point, and remove from heat immediately. Let the mixture steep for at least 30 minutes, longer depending on how strong you wish lavender flavor to be. In a separate pot, add rice to boiling water; cook on medium heat with the lid half closed for 15 minutes, or until water is absorbed by the rice.

In a small bowl, mix cornstarch together with a couple teaspoons of water and a bit of the hot milk mixture, to slightly increase the cornstarch temperature.  Then add the this to the steeping milk.  Transfer the infused milk through a strainer into the rice and cook for 30 minutes or so, until you reach the desired consistency.  Transfer the pudding into your serving dish and refrigerate, covered with plastic wrap, until serving.

Looking for something a bit richer? Try our Jardin du Soleil Lavender Crème Brulee! (It’s the 5^th recipe down.)

SPRING CLEANING SPECIAL! It is just like Spring at Jardin du Soleil Lavender and it is only the last month of February.  Our fruit trees and daffodils are already blooming!  The lavender is still pretty dormant and this is good as we do not want early flowers.  But we are in the mood for Spring Cleaning!  So we are making our  Lavender Linen Closet gift available at a special price of $24.00 so that you will have all you need to start your spring cleaning.  Refresh your linens with our Lavender Dryer Sachets, spritz the guest linens with Lavender  Linen Water and put a lavender sachet or two in the linen closet.  Renew your lavender potpourri with lavender buds from our last harvest.  Put new bars of Jardin du Solell lavender soap in your bathrooms to diffuse the fragrance and put yourself in the mood for Spring and Summer and lavender. Linen Closet Special good through 3/06/10

Hello All,

Sorry about missing you last week, but the Northwest Garden Show was on my 'to do' list. Jardin du Soleil owners, Pam and Randy, had volunteered to man the Sequim Lavender Association information booth. It was a long day in Seattle, but I found some unique hostas to add to our collection in the gardens at JDS. One was called the Drinking Gourd, which is apparently a deformed hybrid, and the other was called the T-REX, growing up to three feet tall with eight inch wide leaves. Very cool.

Drinking Gourd Hosta

Back on the farm this week, I have almost finished the pond. The waterfall, filter, and pump are all in. All I have left are asthetics and rockery. And soon Pam can have her fish!

Watch for updated photos! Happy Gardening!

Boo