Sunday Best: New Faces, Great Tips, and Lavender Love

There are so many great comments on the project that I compile the week's best every Sunday and post them up with links to the contributors.

If you would like to be included in Sunday Best leave me a comment on any post sharing your own dinner for two experiences, cooking tips, easy entertaining tricks, questions, or feedback on the project. Make sure you let me know your web page as well so I can include a link!

And as promised it is a double whammy Sunday best! I so enjoyed reading all of your comments and visiting your blogs. I am always amazed at all the great stories out there. And I am always amazed that you take the time to visit me. You have so much to share.

And there were so many great comments from the last two weeks that I just didn't know how to choose. Please don't be offended if you visited but your comment doesn't appear here this week. Even if I don't post about them all (there are just too many!) I read each and every comment and I do so appreciate everything that you share with us and also your feedback on the project.

Basically you are awesome.

I don't really know where to start this week so it might be a bit disorganized.

Regular reader Kimberly stopped by a couple of times. On the last Sunday Best she tantalised us with BACON and PEANUT BUTTER appetisers. I asked her to share her recipe and she has!

Read about it on her blog and also at Food Dot Com. Bacon and peanut butter. Together. My head asplode.

She also made me very nervous because she is going to try out the mini tuna quiches on her folks. Like TOMORROW! She is even going to post about it. I can’t bear to look!

New reader Hope gave me an AWARD! The A Blog With Substance award.

Hey! I wanted to let you know I gave you an award on my blog for a blog with substance! I love your blog - It's so helpful to me as only my hubby and I are eating "real" food! :) I am always excited to see what recipes are next! :)

Her comment about eating real food there is what this blog is all about. Real food to enhance real experiences and real relationships. Hope has given me a lot to think about as I now have to pick my own blogs with substance. Check out Hope's blog as it definitely has substance.

The Lavender Jelly post had a great response from people. I love it when I can help people to think about food in different ways and also maybe expand their ideas of what can be food or flavouring.

Alex has been experimenting with lavender as well

Evenstar! Thanks so much for sharing the story of the tenacious lavender plant and your first try at jelly made from it! It is wonderful! I never thought to use lavender as a flavoring until I tried some lavender shortbread cookies in the spring and they were awesome! I am going to have to go to my moms and get some heads to make some of this and surprise her in the winter as she is a huge lavender fan. Awesome that you linked this to the Two for Tuesday recipe blog hop

Such a wonderful gift Alex. I would also love to know your recipe for shortbread. I still have shedloads of lavender left!

I found this comment from Christy really interesting. It highlights how much significance is attached to what we eat and how we eat socio-culturally.

My mom never canned a thing - to her poor people canned (she grew up super poor in the deep south)so canning is a whole new thing for me. I have never heard of lavender jelly and can't quite wrap my mind around it. Thanks for linking your jelly journey to Two for Tuesdays!

In some places a woman of any economic status is not worth her salt if she can’t can or make jam or jelly. But I can understand where Christy's mom may be coming from. Here in the UK people are STILL experiencing a backlash from the austerities and rationing of the second world war and post war years. Growing and preserving food has negative connotations because that is what you did to survive during the war. The post war generation passed this attitude on to the next generation and then it went on to the next. It really is a shame because I think people’s lives and health have suffered as a result.

Bonnie is one lady definitely worth her salt in the jelly department:

I just bottled 14 quarts of Plum juice from my backyard plum tree for making jelly later in the fall when it is not so hot. I love the tartness of plum jelly. Good luck on your batch. I too have lavender in my yard but I have never used it in my cooking (just made lavender wands). I need to get more adventurous and try your jelly.

Bonnie you have much to teach us. My plum jelly adventure was a bit of a disaster but I learned a lot and I did end up with jelly. I hope you post up details on yours! Also what are lavender wands? After I am through making shortbreads from Alex's recipe I am still going to have tons of lavender left over. Need to know what else I cna do with it.

Traci had a question about keeping lavender after you pick it:

I've never even tasted lavender jelly, that I know of, but since I have about a bazillion lavender plants in the front of my house, maybe I ought to try this. I kind of enjoy canning, though not so much in the middle of the heat of summer. Can you freeze the lavender flower heads to preserve them to make jelly later or do you just dry them out?

Until I made it myself Traci neither had I! I have to admit I do not know if lavender will freeze well having never tried. I can only go by my experiences with other herbs. I freeze other herbs so they can be processed later. Like basil or marjoram or rosemary. And they work well.

I think that if you wrap the heads up in a paper bag they will be ok for a few weeks but much longer than that and you might find they have less flavour. Freezing would probably preserve the flavour better for longer.Tell you what, give it a go and share your results with us. One batch frozen and one batch dried.

Just one word of warning for anyone wanting to pick and keep lavender heads: DO NOT keep them in a plastic bag! They will go moldy. I learned this the hard way the first year I harvested my lavender. Even though it was really dry there was so much oil in it that it still went off.

As you may know I participate in Two For Tuesdays. A great real food blog hop. Butterpoweredbike does a best of post every week and the lavender jelly made the cut! Even if you don’t have a recipe to link up I would encourage you visit Two For Tuesdays because of the amazing quality of food and writing that you will find there.


Mub had a question about the thin crust pizza dough that had me scratching my head but also inspiring me to try something different.

Because I'm about as mature as a 6 year old, I'm giggling about yeast farts *L*

Have you tried this with whole wheat flour by chance? I'm on the quest to make a good crust with WW flour but they always come out a little too bready.

I have not tried it with whole wheat flour Mub. And I am wondering why it would come out too bready. Perhaps check the gluten content of your flour to make sure that it is bread flour. I am intrigued now and I might just whip up a quick pizza this week with the whole wheat and see how it turns out. One suggestion I would make is to halve the recipe but stretch the dough out so that it is just a big as it would be for a single recipe.

(he he he yeast FARTS)

Pretty Pink Crododile had a variation suggestion for the Skip and Go Naked:

I LOVE love love lemon but not gin. So I might mess with it. Sub in vodka. But the rest looks delish!

I KNOW I recommended against messing with it but vodka would be an acceptable substitute for gin. A very dry white vermouth might also work. So I forgive you Pink. Drink up I say what ever your preference!

I kind of cheated last week by revamping biscuit basics and reposting it. But it is one of those basics things that even I need a refresher in now and then so I thought that people would be interested.

Christy definitely was!

THANK YOU!! I was just complaining the other day to my husband that I cannot master the art of bisquits. Rolls I can do, but bisquits - nope. I will be referring to your tips next time I give it a try! Thanks for a great link up to Two for Tuesdays!

Christy, by FAR rolls are the trickier customer. For me at least. Maybe we can do a culinary exchange here? Tell us your bread making secrets!

Alex shared some great biscuit making tips. It is fantastic that you guys are sharing so much great knowledge with the project. I have learned so much since I started it.

even star! This is such a great tutorial on making biscuits! I also learned that using lard if you can get it will make these even more fluffy! I want to share this post on my blog hop highlights on Thoughts on Friday link love this week, so pop over then and check it out. Thanks for sharing on the two for Tuesday recipe blog hop

I will definitely try lard the next time I do biscuits. Which might be this week. I love biscuits. Ooooh I am in the highlights! Or rather the biscuits are. Share the wealth I say and spread the word of good biscuit making everywhere. Thanks Alex!

Wow now that was a marathon Sunday Best.

And as always I want to say that I know your time is precious and it really means so much to me that you spend some of that time here reading and especially sharing instead of somewhere else.

Well now... What is in store this week? You know I am really not sure. And that is always exciting. SD is down on Friday night and I think we are going to have a quiet weekend.

Something light and lovely on Friday night and I think I will do something dark and decadent for Saturday.

We have had two rather jam packed weekends in a row and the weekend after next we are off on holiday for two weeks. Our first holiday together. In fact it will be the longest period of time we will have spent in each other's company since we have been together. Plus he is meeting the 'rents for the first time.

A bit of a test for both of us so I would like this coming weekend to be relaxed and sensual and comfortable.

And of course easy, sexy, delicious, and fun!