Blog and Recipes

Delicious Rose Flower Water and Rose Geranium Pound Cake

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This Mother’s Day, why not make a cake for your Mom and surprise her? Here is one of our favorites made with Rose Flower Water and Rose Geranium leaves.

ROSE FLOWER WATER & ROSE GERANIUM POUND CAKE

  • 6 rose-scented geranium leaves
  • 2 2/3 cups sugar
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 6 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons URBANherbal rose flower water
  • ½ teaspoon lemon extract
  • 3 cups unbleached flour
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • Zest from one small lemon
  • Powdered sugar, bittersweet chocolate, organic red roses, rose geranium leaves as optional garnishes

Preheat oven to 300 F. Butter and flour a 10 inch tube pan. (We like to use a heart shaped pan.)

In a food processor, finely mince geranium leaves with sugar.

Add butter and cream mixture until light.

Mix in eggs, one at a time. Add rose water and extracts.

Blend well.

Sift flour, salt and soda together 3 times.

Add alternately with the sour cream to the butter mixture.

Add lemon zest and blend well.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 to ½ hours or until golden and firm.

Loosen edges with a knife, and let stand for 15 minutes in the pan, then invert on rack to cool.

Glaze or dust with powdered sugar, or drizzle with bittersweet chocolate. Garnish.

 

Blog and Recipes

Rosemary Spiced Cranberries

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What you’ll need:

  • 2 cups sugar
  • 3/4 cup water
  • 1/3 cup of our Cranberry & Herb Vinegar
  • 4 cups cranberries
  • 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • ½ teaspoon crushed cardamom pods
  • ½ teaspoon ground allspice
  • 2 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary

How to Cook:

1) Cook sugar and water in a heavy saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly.
2) Bring to a boil, add cranberries, vinegar, spices and herbs.
3) Cook for 10 minutes or until cranberries pop.
4) Remove from heat and cool.
5) Refrigerate, covered until serving time.
6) Serve cold or at room temperature, Garnish with a few fresh rosemary sprigs.
Serves 4 to 6.

Blog and Recipes

Beat the Heat with Herbs!

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If you need Summer heat relief from working in your garden, or just from being outside here are a few ideas:

Reward yourself with a cool refreshing bath or shower with a mint or eucalyptus body scrub or bath & shower gel.

Spice things up with one of my lavender sprays or lotions.

Kick back and enjoy a nice cold glass of mint iced tea.

OR cold glass of herb lemonade with mint and lemon verbena.

Impress your friends with an iced cold Cucumber-Rosemary-Lemon Drink. Here is the recipe;

  • 2 cucumbers, peeled and diced
  • 2 lemons, juiced
  • 5 tablespoons sugar(or other sweetener)
  • 1 tablespoon rosemary, finely minced
  • San Pellegrino Water

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend well. Fill a glass with ice and halfway with San Pellegrino water, top off with the cucumber blend, stir well. Can add a jigger of vodka if you want an adult beverage. Garnish with a slice of cucumber and sprig of rosemary.

 

 

Blog and Recipes

Rosemary

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Semihardy, woody perennial, low shrub, craft, culinary, medicinal, ornamental

2-6 feet high, to six feet wide

Full sun to partial shade

Almost any well-drained soil

 Rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalisBrush a sprig of rosemary through your fingers. The fragrance it releases is reminiscent of a seacoast with pines.Rosemary is an herb of strong diverse symbols. It has been considered the emblem of loyalty, friendship and remembrance. Where basil symbolized the quickening of love, rosemary was a token of its long-lasting qualities. Bridesmaids wove rosemary into the bridal wreath they presented to the bridegroom on the wedding day. It was also placed under nuptial mattresses to encourage faithfulness and discourage insects and mildew.
According to custom, rosemary twined in your hair stimulated the memory or helped prevent baldness, depending upon your need. Also connoting friendship, no more party favor could be offered than a gilded rosemary sprig.Rosemary flourished through medieval and renaissance periods. Every garden seemed to have a single bush or several, often pruned in fanciful or symmetrical shapes. The essential oil or the leaves and flowers were used as a bath freshener and mouthwash, in liniments and as a moth repellent.Rosemary has been grown in gardens for so long that natural hybrids have occurred, resulting in forms suitable for many landscape situations.

Rosmarinus officinalis has an upright, shrublike growth habit, reaching 3 to 6 feet high and as wide. Plants blend well with many gray-foliaged plants found in the herb garden.

R. officinalis ‘Prostratus’ is the ground-hugging form, more commonly grown in mild-winter regions of the West. It performs well as a cascading ground cover draped over a wall, on slopes or in the foreground of a flowerbed. The gray-green leaves create a dense, 2 foot-high plant that can spread 4 to 6 feet in diameter.

Leaves of all forms are needlelike with decurved edges and whitish undersides. Flowers come in shades of blue to white. They nestle in the axils of clustered leaves on younger stems and cove the aromatic foliage from late winter to early spring. They are highly attractive to bees.

Planting and Care

Plant from containers in early spring or in fall in mild-winter areas. Accepts almost any well-drained soil. Plant in full-sun to partial-shade. Water needs are low to moderate, once plants are established. Over-watering and too much fertilizer cause growth to be rank. To maintain a low, flowing form, cut back to hard wood, reducing foliage buildup in center of plant. Prune to maintain natural plant form every year of two in late winter, prior to the strong, surge of early spring growth.

In cold winter regions, rosemary cannot survive as a landscape plant, but it can be grown using the indoors-to-outdoors method. When growing in pots use a mixture of perlite, or large-grained, sterile sand, humus and potting soil for good drainage and aeration.

Grow indoors in a sunny location. Accepts low water but performs best with regular irrigation. Reduced sunlight and lower daytime temperatures indoors lessen the need for water.

Harvesting and Use

Rosemary’s components of tannin and camphor give it a moderate bitterness and pepperiness, especially with foods in high fat, like lamb roasts and pork or with bland foods such as potatoes or legumes. Dried rosemary generally can be substituted for fresh. Whole needles must be dried to preserve its oils. Tie in a cheesecloth bag or mince well before adding to foods so you won’t chew on the tough needles. The flavor strength of the dried herb varies greatly, but usually one part dried herb equals about four parts fresh.

We use rosemary in all kinds of body care products, fragrances, and in savory foods and even our famous, Rosemary-Orange Rum Cake.