Rosewater Toner DIY and Book Review

Hubby and I am fan of gardening, we planted our orange tree, curry plant, lemon tree in our old house, as we sold that house and moved to a new house we are developing our garden here. However due to a harsh winter last year some of our trees are gone, and some are still some trying to come back. We lost our neem tree.  Also our Rose plant is flowering now. So decide to make this Rosewater Toner and I need to review a book Harvest which is long due.

I was excited to review the book  Harvest: Unexpected Projects Using 47 Extraordinary Garden Plants by Stefani Bittner and  Alethea Harampolis .  Trust me it has beautiful photos. Harvest goes through different plants, tips on growing them, what to harvest, how long you can store and what creative idea you can make with flowers, like a wreath. As a food blogger I found this book doesn’t have many recipes.  Only few recipes around 15 that too about making tea and butter and pomegranate margarita which I have tried earlier.

The book is divided into 3 different gardening seasons: Early (late winter to early spring) with 12 chapters, mid (summer to early fall) with 19 chapters   and Late (late fall to early winter) with 16 chapters.  From this book you get an idea what to grow in each season, but it doesn’t have a complete chapter on how to grow it and what are the problems you are going to get. Yes I am trying to grow lavender and already killed three plants. This book is not much to offer in that case.

This book has stunning photograph and each chapter use the flower or fruit and use it as one of the ingredients. For example poppy seed dressing  contains poppy seed. Various recipes discusses about the use of Alpine strawberry, Turmeric dye, sage garland, Edible flower garnish, tuber mash etc.

I tried to make rosewater tonner with roses from the garden. I found instructions a little bit confusing.  Otherwise this book is bright and colorful, and a fantastic reference for those who would wish to make their yards and gardens practical and useful, as well as ornamental.  If you are interested in growing fresh flowers and fruits which you can use as edible and ornamental then give it a try.

I made only small batch of rosewater tonner.  You can increase the amount if you want.

“I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.”

5 from 1 vote

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Rosewater Toner DIY

Home made Rosewater Toner made from fresh flowers from the Garden.

Author: Swathi (Ambujom Saraswathy)

Ingredients

• 3 rose flower
• 1 ½ cups distilled water
• Few Ice cubes

Instructions

1. In a pot a place small pot inside and then add washed rose flower and distilled water and bring to simmer, once it starts simmer place another small pot on the top with ice and capture the steam You need to simmer it for 30 minutes and drain the flowers and use the extract.

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Swathi

This is Swathi ( Ambujom Saraswathy) from Zesty South Indian Kitchen who loves to explore cuisines from all over the world. Whenever possible I try to to give an Indian touch to several of the world cuisine, and has weakness for freshly baked bread.  All the recipes you see here are created by me and approved after taste-test by my family.