From the garden to the kitchen: Mint (and a lot of it)….

I don’t know how it happened, but I seem to have a mint plant that is growing quicker than the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk. Every time I look at it there’s more of it, and I’m at the point where I feel like I have an unlimited supply so I’m starting to use it in more than just my daily mint and orange water which is actually the reason that I grow mint in the first place.

My mint plant is absolutely thriving at the moment and the four or five leaves that I’ve been picking each day for my water aren’t making a dent in it so I’ve been thinking about what else I can do with it to use it up.

(This is why I plant mint in a pot as it can get a bit wild 😁)

I know I can pop some in a mug with boiling water and make some mint tea but I’m not really a fan of that personally and in the past, when I’ve had rogue mint that’s needed using up, I’ve preferred to use it in a homemade mint lemonade but it has too much sugar in for me these days so that’s off my list. 

I do plan to give it a go using Stevia rather than sugar at some point to see if I can make a diabetic friendly version but for now, my homemade mint lemonade is off the table. 

I’ll stick to my mint and orange water for now when it comes to drinks using our mint. 🍊

I make a batch on a night before I go to bed and just use half an orange cut into segments and about five mint leaves in a big water bottle which I fill to the top with water and pop in the fridge to chill and let the flavours mix together. 

Honestly, it’s amazing.

It makes a lovely simple soup when I throw some in the soup maker with a couple of handfuls of peas and some stock…

I’ve had that a few times for lunch this week with some shredded gammon on top. 

I also tried it in cous cous yesterday where I basically made the cous cous as I normally do with a vegetable stock cube and then stirred through pomegranate seeds and some very finely chopped mint. It was nice and all that but I don’t think I’m a pomegranate and mint cous cous kind of girl. 😁

I also made a quick mint yoghurt on Saturday night to go with our homemade fakeaway chicken shawarma kebabs and it went really well with them.  It’s so easy to make with a couple of dollops of natural yoghurt (I use Fage Greek Yoghurt), some chopped mint, a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt and it’s ready. 

Instead of mash for Sunday dinner, we had boiled potatoes and I poured over a mix of melted butter and finely chopped mint but we didn’t really enjoy it to be honest. It’s supposed to taste lovely but neither of us were a fan so I won’t be doing that again.

There’s a few things on my list left to try it with though – I’ve read that it works really well with fruit like strawberries and watermelon so I have high hopes for that and I also plan to make a homemade mint sauce at some point too. 

I’ve even tried freezing some but it’s just not the same when it defrosts so if anyone has any ideas for how I can make that work then that would be amazing!

I have pots of basil and rocket on the go at the moment too and I’m hoping they are better behaved than the mint because if not, you’ll be seeing posts about how I use them in the near future!

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