Holy Mint!
For the last few weeks, I have been avoiding one task in my garden because it seemed too big to think about.
What on earth was I going to do with my mint plant gone wild? I asked around and people kept telling me, “Make mojitos!” Or, “Make an Asian salad!” Which is all well and good, if I planned on eating ten meals a day consisting of just mojitos and salads. Unfortunately, I like a little more variety than that in my diet…
So, in lieu of eating nothing but mint for a week straight, I decided to try to preserve it in three ways.
1. Freeze individual mint leaves and store for future salads/mojitos/whenever I fancy some…
I simply rinsed my mint in a salad spinner, spun to dry, and laid in a single layer on a pan for an hour. Once frozen, they didn’t brown or do anything funky. Actually, it was very successful and now I have a baggie of mint in my freezer.
2. Method two involved more freezing – but this time in ice cube trays.
Each tray was filled halfway up with mint leaves and water. I let them freeze for about an hour, then filled up the rest of the tray – making sure the mint didn’t poke out the top (like it is in the photo above).
When I want to use the mint, I can either melt down the cubes or create fancy mint-flavored drinks.
3. The last thing I did with my mint was make a mint simple syrup. Well, actually, I made a sugary mint water, since I didn’t follow the typical one-to-one ratio with sugar and water. It isn’t my fault we ran out of sugar! I used three cups of water to one cup of sugar and brought it to a boil. Then, I added 2 cups of mint and allowed to steep for about ten minutes. It had a strange smell, not gonna lie; a little like collard greens. Luckily, once I strained the mint leaves the syrup doesn’t taste quite so vegetable-based.
In order to celebrate my mint adventures, I decided to concoct a beverage. I added two mint cubes, 2 T of lemon juice, 2 T of mint simple syrup, and sparkling water. The mint-lemonade was zesty and yummy. Plus, it is interesting to have the mint cubes slowly melt into your drink, allowing preserved leaves to float to the top.
