Recipe: Fresh Mint Chamomile Tea

We’ve gotten fresh chamomile a couple times in our CSA and it’s such a pleasant herb!  Pretty and makes a lovely tisane.  We got some mint too, so I combined them to make a nice bedtime tea.  Our lemon verbena is coming back to life, so I think I’ll experiment with that too.

Ingredients

• 1 T chamomile flowers per cup of water (use flowers only, the leaves don’t have much flavor)
• small handful of mint, bruised
• freshly boiled filtered water

Pour the hot water over the herbs in your tea pot and let infuse for about 3 minutes.  Strain and enjoy!

Recipe: Raw Beet Salad with Arugula and Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Don’t have patience to cook your beets for an hour?  Here’s an easy solution.  The beets definitely take on a different flavor, and stay very crunchy, but their good raw, not like raw potatoes, more like raw celeriac.

Ingredients

• 2 beets (1 golden, 1 red) thinly sliced on a mandolin
• small handful mint, chopped
• a few T chives, chopped
• 3 T white wine vinegar
• 1 shallot, thinly sliced
• 1 bunch arugula, including flowers
• good olive oil
• feta

Combine the shallot and vinegar in a large bowl and let marinate for about 10 minutes, to cut the edge of the shallot.  Add the mint and chives and stir to combine with a pinch of salt.  Then add the thinly sliced golden beets and let marinate for about 5 minutes.  Remove the beets and arrange on a plate, reserving the liquid.  Add the red beets to the vinegar and let marinate for 5 minutes.  This will turn the vinegar red.  Artfully arrange the red beets on the plate with the yellow ones.  Drizzle some olive oil on the beets on the plates.  Add more olive oil to the remaining vinegar in the large bowl.  Add the arugula, some S&P and toss.  Plate the arugula in the middle of the beets.  Scatter feta on top of everything.  Garnish with grilled cheese sandwiches.