Lemon-Hibiscus Bread

I was rustling through the pantry and found a partial bag of dried hibiscus flowers that I had used to make some tacos last year. They’ve been sitting there waiting for me to use them again since our little one arrived. I have not found many recipes that are intended to use hibiscus or jamaica flowers in them, but then I thought I should try to use a recipe that called for lavender. With that in mind, I adapted a recipe from How to Bake Everything to incorporate crumbled hibiscus flowers. As we ate on the loaf, there were a few flowers that weren’t as broken up as I would have liked, but the flowers added a nice background sweet bitterness to the bread.

Fruit Juice Summer Drink

For one of the end-of-the-summer gatherings, I mixed up this fruit juice summer drink. There were lots of kids at the gathering who opted to have orange juice over punch, but those who drank the fruit juice summer drink, from Our Hobby Cook Book – First Presbyterian Church Amboy, Minnesota, seemed to enjoy it and drank multiple glassfuls of it.

Spicy Lemon-Rosemary Pork Tenderloin

As meat prices were moving all over throughout the spring, I was purchasing items as they were on sale.  And, I had two plain pork tenderloins in the freezer that seemed like a good option.  I had intended to grill these outside, but the day that I made these, the wind would not die down and so I followed the instructions within this recipe from the Food and Wine Annual Cookbook 2011.  The pork was moist and delicious — about perfect.  There is a little kick to these, so if you don’t like spice, it might not be the recipe for you.  I also found myself using dried rosemary, and I imagine this would be enhanced through fresh rosemary.