There is something so refreshing about cold flavored drinks during the summer. That said, I’ve never been a fan of traditional iced tea. But this summer, I am faced with an abundance of herbs (including Lemon Balm). So I decided to try my hand at herbal teas. Lemon Balm has a light lemony flavor, and makes a great tea, hot or cold. But as it is summer, iced tea sounds better!
Lemon Balm has a relaxing effect. The sweet lemony herb is supposed to help with digestion, sleeplessness, and anxiety. In other words, it is healthy! It also grows like crazy during the summer, and makes a lovely tea. So why not make a large batch?
Lemon Balm Iced Tea
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This herbal Iced Tea is made with Lemon Balm for a refreshing summer drink. For extra flavor, add in your favorite summer fruit or a complimentary herb! Strawberries and Mint taste great with Lemon Balm.
This herbal Iced Tea is made with Lemon Balm for a refreshing summer drink. For extra flavor, add in your favorite summer fruit or a complimentary herb! Strawberries and Mint taste great with Lemon Balm.
Fill a large saucepan with water, and heat on the stove. Once the water is simmering, take it off the heat.
Immediately add the fresh lemon balm, sugar, and lemon juice. Stir to help the sugar dissolve.
Allow the tea to steep as it cools. Once it is cool, you can strain out the lemon balm leaves, and enjoy with ice!
Recipe Notes
Strawberries (and other fruit) taste great with Lemon Balm Iced Tea! Feel free to add 6-8 strawberries during the cooling process, and let them infuse the water.
I love the Mediterranean taste of oregano and garlic (if you haven’t guessed yet!). This chicken sandwich recipe combines both of those flavors with a bit of lemon for delicious zesty chicken.
Good Tzatziki Sauce is a must with the chicken. The yogurt balances out the spices wonderfully.
Mix together the olive oil, lemon juice, oregano, garlic, and salt in a plastic bag.
Chop up the chicken into small easily cooked pieces, and let it chicken breast marinate in the oil mixture in the fridge for at least 1-2 hours. Overnight is ideal.
Cook the chicken pieces in a medium sized saucepan on the stove.
Slice the cooked chicken up into nice thin slices suitable for a sandwich. Wrap up your chicken slices and about 2 tablespoons of tzatziki sauce in each piece of pita bread.
Quite a mouthful, right? I found this pie recipe in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine a few years ago, selling itself short as caramel apple and cherry pie. But there’s serious cranberry and orange going on here too!
I’ve made this pie two Thanksgivings in a row now. Its perfect for the holidays!
Caramel-Apple Cranberry-Cherry Pie
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This pie combines two completely different fillings together for a delicious festive dessert!
Servings
Prep Time
8people
45minutes
Cook Time
45minutes
Servings
Prep Time
8people
45minutes
Cook Time
45minutes
Caramel-Apple Cranberry-Cherry Pie
Print Recipe
This pie combines two completely different fillings together for a delicious festive dessert!
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. You are going to want to cook your piecrust a bit before adding the filling, so go ahead and put it in your pie plate and poke the bottom and sides with a fork.
You will want to leave some dough for the top crust.
Cook the crust for a maximum of 20 minutes while you work on the filling.
For the cranberry cherry mixture, combine your cranberries, white sugar, orange juice (and some orange zest if you want extra oranginess). Cook until the cranberries burst.
Add your cherries to the cranberry mixture. If your cherries were frozen (its not like they're in season in November. . .), you might want to cook them for a bit all together. If not, you're done! Set the mixture aside.
For your caramel apple filling, peel and chop your apples, adding your lemon juice and zest to keep them from browning too soon. Mix together your flour, sugar, and cinnamon, and then add your dry mix to the apples. Mix until well coated.
Melt your butter in a saucepan on the stove, then add your apple mixture (the pan should be large enough for all the apples with some room to spare!). Cook for 5 minutes, or until the apples are tender. Add your whipping cream and vanilla, and continue cooking, stirring frequently. In about five more minutes, the mixture should thicken. Take it off the heat.
Alternately layer your apple and cran-cherry fillings in your (partially cooked) pie crust. You should start with a layer of caramelized apples, and end with the cranberry cherry mixture.
Cover with your top crust. You can do cute shapes made of pie dough, or a lattice top. You may want to brush some egg white on your top crust to make it pretty. Feel free to also sprinkle it with sugar.
Bake your pie another 40 or so minutes. Its done when the filling is bubbling and the top is golden brown!
Recipe Notes
Please note, the cute leaf shapes for a top crust sounds great, but they never come out as pretty as a magazine pictures. I will definitely be doing a lattice top next time around.
Cheese is mysterious. You buy it at the store. Maybe you’ve even seen some sort of demonstration where cheese was made. But you can’t do that at home, right? Who makes their own cheese?
Well there’s no real reason not to make your own cheese. Especially when it comes to Farmer’s Cheese, which is amazingly easy. There’s no curing, no rennet, nothing but milk and something acidic. You don’t even need special milk – though milk with more fat seems to yield more cheese.
Fill a medium saucepan with the milk, and place on the stove at medium-low heat. You want to heat the milk until its frothy and just at the edge of boiling.
Add the lemon juice or vinegar. It should take you about 2 tablespoons, or the juice of two lemons (fresh squeezed lemon juice makes the final cheese taste wonderfully lemony), but the exact amount is not as important as getting the correct effect. Keep adding your acidic liquid until the curds separate from the whey.
Separate the curds from the whey. You can use cheese cloth or paper towels over a collander (and a bowl underneath to catch the whey), or a very fine sieve.
Allow the curds to drain. If you're using cheese cloth, gather all the curds into the cloth, and hang it over the sink. It will drip drain. If you're using the sieve method, shake it until the curds hang together in one solid mass. Add a small amount of salt while draining the cheese, and make sure to mix it in well.
Eat your cheese immediately, or store it in the fridge for later (or another recipe!).
Recipe Notes
You'll want to save the whey. Whey is not only good for you, but a great substitute for milk or water in baking.
Also, the milk to cheese yield ratio is a bit low. I usually use 2% milk (because that's what I have in the house), and am lucky to get a cup out of 5 cups of milk. That's a lot of milk for very little cheese! Put the whey to good use.
