syrups

Have you ever looked in your fridge to find a random grocery bag shoved all the way in the back?  And you kind of ignore it for a couple days because you have no idea what it is, so it must be some random stuff your dad purchased on a whim again?  And then finally your curiosity kicks in when you're hungry and opening the fridge for the third time that day only to find that nothing new has appeared?  And lo and behold, it's a big bag of mint?  And you can hardly contain your excitement because it smells so good, and you rarely have fresh herbs at home?  So you start putting it in your water and eating it with fruit, and as it nears its end of shelf life, you realize you must act fast if you want to take advantage of all this random mint that your parents neither touched nor told you about.

Well if you find yourself in such a predicament...

Make a simple syrup.

This was way back when the sun was shining, the air was humid, the trees were luscious, and I was counting down the days in the South (and winter did not extend into spring time).  This was way back when peaches were in season.

Recipe adapted from here.

I did find myself in such a predicament again last semester.  With less backstory.  It's that basil dependency I told you about.  So I went ahead and tried Lemon cakes with basil lemon syrup cake from Gourmet mag.

Not quite cake, not quite muffin, plus candied lemon peel.  

Current status: handful of mint awaiting something savory.