Lavender, Bacon, & Neil Gaiman

I just enjoyed a fabulous weekend. It was filled with my favorite things. Great food, great company and great entertainment. I successfully made some lavender infused vodka as well as some tasty bacon wrapped dates. We also attended a stage adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 'Neverwhere' which was done extremely well. Hats off to the crew who created the interesting sets. The play goes for another month so if you are in the Los Angeles area and like Neil Gaiman I recommend checking it out. Information can be found at this link Sacred Fools Theater.

So as I said I was having some fun experimenting with recipes. My first experiment was based upon seeing a bag of lavender in the spices section of World Market and having a yearning to make something with it since I love lavender as a flavor and a scent. Like Lady Early Grey tea. So I bought it, then decided it would go well as vodka, paired with St. Germaine's. (Which I have not gotten yet.) So I added the lavender to a bottle of vodka (about 1/2 c lavender buds to a 750 ml bottle of vodka) and let it steep. Knowing how quickly garlic vodka becomes potent I decided to start testing after a day and found that two days gave it a great lavender taste and aroma without being too cloying. I used a fine mesh strainer to drain out the lavender and put it back into a glass flask I keep around for these kinds of things. It tasted great with a few cubes of ice, club soda and a dash of honey. That was how I was enjoying drinking it at any rate. I will have more to share once I get the liquor for my new cocktail invention.

Since I was hungry after making my concoction I decided to throw together some bacon wrapped dates because the dates had been calling to me in the store earlier. I cut slices of bacon in half an wrapped each around a date, then I put it on a broiling pan and drizzled some fig balsamic on them. Broiled for 10 minutes. they came out pretty tasty but the ends of the dates burned a bit so next time I think I want to marinate the dates in the vinegar, then slice them and add some goat cheese, then wrap in bacon and broil. I think that will be better.

So there you go, two recipes to make up for the lack of posts lately! Buongiorno!