Rose Water

Last summer with all the rainy weather I felt like I missed out on a lot of the perks of living in Alaska. Mostly the berry harvest. This year the warm sunny weather is bringing the wildflowers out not only much earlier in the season than previous years, but in bountiful numbers as well.

(I didn't pick these ones, they are lining the edge of the trail at Creamer's Field)

Of course I am hoping that all these flowers will bring on a bountiful berry harvest as well. To make up for last year I decided that I am not going to let anything go to waste, so when I saw all of these wild roses in bloom I broke out my book from the University of Alaska Cooperative Extension Service called Collecting and Using Alaska's Wild Berries and other Wild Products. This book has been my go to for most of the berries I have been finding, it is always a good starting place. The Cooperative Extension also has an extensive collection of free handouts at the Farmer's Market as well. It also appears that they have a pretty useful website that I am ashamed to say that I have not looked at until today. Since it looks like the starting point for any good rose petal recipe is rose water, I decided to start there...

Rose Water

1 cup of rose petals rinsed (if necessary) and dried 

1 tbsp honey

1 cup of waterBoil rose petals, honey, and water for 10 minutes, or until rose petals lose their color. Let steep up to 48 hours. Strain and keep in a covered container for up to two weeks.

I also decided to dry some rose petals in my dehydrator as well. I highly recommend doing this even if you are not going to eat the rose petals. The whole house smelled wonderful the next morning as I left the dehydrator running overnight.

I recommend putting a screen over the exhaust for your dehydrator. The petals are so small that they fall through the grates and eventually get blown out the bottom. I woke to dried rose petals scattered all over my kitchen, the majority of which blew all over the dog and his bed. Luckily, I was able to salvage a few that stayed in the machine.