Rosemary & Lavender

It is no secret that I love entertaining, and I love making any get together extra special by putting some home made touches and a lot of thought into what I make, and share with my family and friends. This weekend was no different :)

On Saturday, Kirk's family had come over for a casual dinner on the deck. We did a fancy burger night which seems to be an on-going trend for the Heinrichs. Erica has bought some nice burgers from Whole Foods, and I made grilled caesar salad, a fruit salad with rosemary simple syrup, rosemary lemonade (I had some extra rosemary in my garden) and a coconut cream pie for dessert.

Rosemary Lemonade! Recipe below...

Heavenly..

Unfortunately we didn't get to the pie for dessert, but Chloe (our niece) did grab some of my graham crackers...

Continuing on, we  invited a few friends over  to celebrate our fire pit! For the occasion I had made graham crackers, marshmallows, and had Katie pick up some milk and dark Theo Chocolate. Two words. Gourmet S'mores!

On Sunday, Kirk and I spent the day walking around Woodinville, exploring some of the side farms. We stumbled upon Woodinville Lavender, which I had heard about through a friend, and I was dying to go! It's a stunning property with so much lavender it warms my heart. Kirk and I did the U-Pick option, and went to the lavender fields to cut some. We also had each bought an ice cream bar.. I chose vanilla lavender, and Kirk had blackberry lavender.

A third of the field

Our lavender we picked. It was pretty fun to joke to Kirk about "man once you get married, you spend your Sunday's picking lavender :)"


RECIPE FOR ROSEMARY LEMONADE
Makes roughly 1 pitcher of lemonade

8 cups water
A handful of rosemary
1 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup agave nectar
A pinch of kosher salt
Rosemary simple syrup to taste (if you want it sweeter)

1. Bring the water, rosemary, and salt to boil. Turn off, let steep for 2-4 hours.
2. Strain the rosemary out of the water
3. Stir in lemon juice and agave nectar.

Voila! Super easy and delicious... however:

If you want it to be sweeter (which I personally did) you can add some rosemary simple syrup.
To make the rosemary simple syrup, I combined 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, and a couple sprigs of rosemary. I boiled all three together until it reduced down to a thin syrupy condition. I probably added 1/3 cup of the simple syrup mix to my lemonade. You will have extra rosemary simple syrup left, but there are tons of things you can do with it. I threw some into my fruit salad, and it will also be a lovely addition to a gin cocktail. Endless possibilities people!