Recipes

I’m not much of a baker. All the precise measurements and exactitude of baking scares me. I’m much more of a taste-as-you-go cook, adding spices and mixing until I get it right. That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised to find this recipe for Easy No-Bake Key Lime Bites; no baking means easy preparation during busy summertime days and few ingredients makes this recipe appropriate for even the most novice dessert-maker (like me). These tasty, simple bites are perfect for your next outdoor get-together! Best part is, no baking means a cool house on a hot summer day!

As the days get longer and our schedules fill with outdoor outings, barbecues and vacations, I find myself returning to my tried and true recipes to please the masses – the ones whose pages in my recipe book are stained and crumpled with years of enjoyment and satisfaction. This year though, I promised to mix it up a bit. Rather than relying on my old standbys (delicious as they may be) I sought out a few new kitchen creations to rejuvenate my tired summer-time repertoire. I’ll be sharing the findings here with you on the blog, all featuring our raw honeys, of course.

Consider this the first of the installment of #summerhoneylove!

Though newly concocted, artificial sweeteners fill grocery store shelves these days, honey has been a staple food for humans for centuries. Bees were often the subject of hieroglyphs in Egyptian times and a rock painting dating back to 2400 BC in Cairo serves as one of the earliest evidence of honey harvesting and bee keeping. In fact, archaeologists discovered still-edible honeycomb buried in an Egyptian tomb! The Greeks and Romans saw honey as a crucial food and medicine as well; cheese was mixed with honey to create cheesecakes, used as an offering to the gods and to treat wounds post-battle. Bees themselves were venerated as they were thought to hold unique powers and gifts. As shown in an important collection of Roman-era cooking recipes, the Apicius, we see one of the first uses of honey – honey cakes or enkhytoi, made from honey, eggs and flour. Even though enkhytoi is delicious, I wanted to share a more modern use of honey in cooking, Wedderspoon Lavender Oat Shortbread Cookies Drizzled with Lemon Honey.