Recipes

Country Living's Strawberry and Cucumber Salad

Mint is the biggest herb plant in my garden. So I thought I would try to make something new with this one to start my herb-a-day blog going. It would be far too easy to post about a generic recipe I always make (ahem, mojitos!) so I wanted to try to combine it with something I've never tried before:

Strawberries!!!

Okay, okay -- so there aren't actually any strawberries growing on my plants yet, even though I'm reeeally proud of the fact that we are up to 9 plants this year in our little patch from the 2 we began with three years ago. :-D So I did go out and buy some local strawberries so I could make a really interesting new summer recipe I found in this month's County Living Magazine.

Here is the recipe:

Strawberry & Cucumber Salad

1 large cucumber
250g strawberries
juice & zest of 1/2 lemon
2 1/2 tbs olive oil
1 pinch caster sugar
1 tbs fresh chopped mint leaves
1/2 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

And here it is finished! It all smelled so lovely when I was making it, the kitchen felt so summery. The ingredients I wrote above are actually half of what it says in the magazine and I misssed out the zest of the lemon by accident. I am also a wimp and couldn't bring myself to put an ENTIRE chilli in it. We didn't have any red chillis in the house so I put a 1/3 of a green chilli in instead, which added a tad of a kick but not so much that it effected the taste too much. So it ended up being quite nice and mild and sweet and very minty. I even took the other half to work and had it for breakfast the next morning.

My Apple & Bay Leaf Sugar Syrup:

About 25 fresh bay leaves

1 apple, sliced in to wedges

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

Clean jam jar

Give the bay leaves a good wash and a pat dry with kitchen towel, and measure out a cup of sugar.

 

Chop the green apple in to wedges.

Measure out a cup of water in to a saucepan and add the sugar, heating until all the sugar has dissolved. You don't need to necessarily boil the water, just get it hot enough for the sugar to dissolve.

Add the bay leaves! It's worth making JUST to smell this moment. I couldn't believe how strong it was, it was so nice.

Add the apple wedges. And then turn the heat off and leave it for 30 minutes. 

Once finished steeping drain out the bay leaves/apple and poured it in to a freshly washed jam jar. 

What did I do with this new Apple & Bay Leaf Syrup you ask? Well, made up a cocktail of course! :-)

I love a good gin & tonic, so I decided to make an Apple & Bay Gin Cocktail:

1 tbs Apple & Bay Leaf Syrup
45ml Gin
4-5 ice cubes
Top with soda water
Garnish with a couple of slices of apple

The syrup is stronger so beware. I also tried it over a fruit salad and it was quite nice, but it definitely needs light fruit (I drizzled it over strawberries, grapes, and apple). It has quite a heavy taste. It is going to be really nice in stews and soups, and I think it will be perfect for using as a sugary topping on roast ham and roast pork.

But for today, it made a nice summery drink for sitting outside in the afternoon sun. Thank you, bay leaf tree! :-)