You are in for a treat. When I'm not ill and able to cook, I use lavender quite a lot. It has a sort of flowery/lemony flavour.

Use it instead of rosemary on your roast leg of lamb.

Scatter a few over your veges (potatoes, pumpkin, onions, zucchini, carrots etc) to be roasted, along with a squeeze or two of crushed garlic.

Add some to a plain ice cream recipe, or infuse the milk/cream with some before making the ice cream.

Add a few lavender flowers to your favourite apple pie recipe, or to a fruit salad.

Use 1 heaped tablespoon dried lavender flowers to 2 cups flour as a substitute for vanilla in cake and biscuit recipes, ice cream and custards. Makes a nice vinegar for salad dressings etc.

Flowers can be used in cakes, biscuits, bread, fruit salads, desserts, jellies and vinegars. Flowers can be crystallised. An essential ingredient in Herbes Provence. A tea made from the flowers reduces flatulence, treats dizziness, nausea (including travel sickness), mild burns, depression and bad breath.

I have heaps of lavender recipes. Here are just a few.

Baked Apple Slices with Lavender Cream
3 tablespoon unsalted butter or margarine, cut into thin slices
1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
3/4 cup light ricotta cheese
1/4 cup skim milk
1 tablespoon fresh or dried lavender flowers
3 tablespoons honey

Preheat the oven to 190C and butter four small ramekins. Arrange the apple slices in the ramekins. Lay the butter slices evenly over the apples and sprinkle with the brown sugar. Bake for 20 minutes. While the apples are baking, combine the remaining ingredients in a food processor or blender and process until smooth. After the apples have baked, turn the oven up to 230C. Pour the creamed mixture over the apples and bake for another 10 minutes. Serve warm.

Barbecued Pork Chops with Lavender
4 thick pork loin or rib chops
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon minced fresh lavender flowers or 1/2 teaspoon dried lavender
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Combine salt, pepper, lavender, thyme, rosemary, and olive oil; rub mixture onto the pork chops. Cover the chops with plastic wrap and let sit 1-2 hours at room temperature. Preheat barbecue grill. Place pork chops onto hot grill. Cover barbecue with lid, open any vents, and grill 4-5 minutes; turn and grill an additional 3-4 minutes or until done.

Lavender and Honey Salad Dressing
6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 teaspoon coarse grain mustard
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon dried lavender flowers

Whisk all ingredients together, leave for 30 minutes. Whisk again and serve. Will keep in a screw lid jar in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Lavender Baked Custard
1 bunch lavender
2 cups cream
1/2 cup castor sugar
3 eggs, beaten

Gently heat the lavender in the cream for 10 minutes. Cool and strain. Add the castor sugar and eggs, and bake at180°C until set. This custard is pale green and is delicious.

Lavender Biscuits
125g butter
100g castor sugar
1 egg
180g self-raising flour
1 tablespoon dried English lavender flowers
sliced almonds or chopped pistachios (optional)

Cream the butter and sugar, add the egg and beat well. Add flowers, and mix thoroughly but lightly. Add sifted flour and mix again, adding more flour if mixture is too soft. Stir in nuts if using. Place teaspoonfuls on a baking tray lined with non-stick baking paper, and bake in a preheated moderate oven for 15-20 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

Lavender Honey (Oh so yummy!)
250g light honey, such as clover honey
4 tablespoons dried lavender buds

Heat honey in double boiler until fully heated. Add lavender and stir. Continue over heat for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to partially cool. Place in sun for 3 hours (optional). Strain out lavender. Put honey in jar. [Try some on toast, on crumpets, on crepes (roll up and sprinkle with icing sugar), add some to icing and filling for a cake.]

Lavender Muffins (my favourite lavender recipe)
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups self raising flour (sifted)
1/3 cup lavender blossoms

Preheat oven to 180°C. Cream butter with sugar, add eggs, milk, salt, baking powder and flour. Beat well. Fold in lavender blossoms. Grease muffin tins or use patty cake papers. Fill cups 1/2 full. Bake 12-18 minutes depending on size. They are done when toothpick stuck in middle comes out clean. While still hot, glaze with 1/2 cup icing sugar mixed with juice of 1 lemon. Decorate with lavender blossoms. Let sit several hours before serving. [I don't sprinkle the top with more lavender. Too much!]

Lavender Roast Lamb
Have the butcher bone a lamb leg or shoulder. Make up the following stuffing mixture, spread over the meat, roll and up, secure, and roast as usual.

Stuffing Mixture:
1 cup soft breadcrumbs
1 egg
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon finely chopped lavender flowers
1 teaspoon chopped rosemary flowers

Mix all ingredients together.

Lavender Cream Chicken
4 boneless chicken breasts
300ml thickened cream
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
1/4 cup white wine
1/8 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon crushed dried lavender flowers
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup chicken stock

Add olive oil and butter to a heated frypan. Add chicken and saute on low heat for 5 minutes on each side. Remove chicken and set aside. Add chopped shallots to pan and saute until translucent. Add wine, chicken stock, thyme and lavender to pan and cook about1 minute, scraping bottom of pan as you cook. Reduce slightly, and return chicken to pan. Turn chicken until juices run clear. Add cream, reduce slightly. Serve with rice or noodles.

Lavender Syrup
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons fresh or dried lavender flowers
1 small piece of lemon rind, all white removed

Combine water and sugar and boil until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add lavender flowers and lemon rind. Steep for twenty minutes and strain. Refrigerate.

Lavender Lemonade
For each drink, squeeze 1/2 lemon into glass, dropping lemon into glass after squeezing. Add 2 tablespoons Lavender Syrup and 1/4 cup water. Fill glass with crushed ice.

Lavender Cream and Fruit
Pour 1/2 cup Lavender Syrup over fresh cut summer fruit- peaches, nectarines, etc. and allow to blend for 30 minutes. To make cream, add two tablespoons Lavender Syrup to 1 cup heavy cream. Whip cream to soft peak and serve over fruit. Garnish with fresh lavender flowers.

Herbes de Provence
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon savory
1/2 teaspoon lavender flowers
1/2 teaspoon oregano or basil
1/4 teaspoon sage

Combine all ingredients. Add some to butter, to soups, on potatoes, on rice, pasta, fish and bread. Rub some on an oiled chicken and roast as usual. Cut up red, yellow and green capsicums, eggplant, zucchini, squash, leeks (shallots or any onion) into bite sized pieces. Pour a little olive oil over and sprinkle on 2 teaspoons of the mixture. Stir to mix the oil and herbs evenly. Bake at 200°C for 15-20 minutes.

Wow, Daisy, thank you very much! It all sounds delicious!!
I've copied and pasted to my recipe file. I goofed when I said Fines Herbs, I did mean Herbes de Provence--love that stuff.

I am big on custards, so will probably try lavender custard first. The pork chops and salad dressing are high on the list, too.

What is castor sugar? Is it what Americans call powdered, or 10X, sugar? You must be Canadian or English.
My mom is English. I've recently found a source of Demarara sugar for her, as well as an English salad dressing she thought could not be found in the states.

As it says near my name, I'm from 'Aust' - Australia.

Castor sugar is your superfine sugar - or as near as dammit. Granules are very fine, but not powdered. Your powdered sugar is our icing sugar - it comes either pure, or as icing sugar mix, which has cornflour (cornstarch) added to it. I think you call the mixture 'confectioner's sugar'. I haven't got a clue what 10X sugar is. That's a new one on me!

Castor sugar is a little finer than US regular sugar but not as fine as the stuff sold as baking sugar by C&H. If you are a perfectionist plus regular sugar in a blender or food processor for a few seconds.

For the English foods etc make a search of the web you can find all kinds of things. There is/was a place in Lawrence Kansas that ordered things for expats. Also check Costco's World Bazzar stores for somethings especially with the December holidays coming up.

There is a superfine sugar that isn't a powdered sugar that is available in every super market around here. It comes in a 1 lb box and it's labeled "superfine sugar." Some people call it "bar sugar" since it is often used for iced and mixed drinks. Look for a box rather than a bag in your baking supplies aisle.

Although I've made the same running some sugar through an electric coffee grinder - which is an excellent kitchen appliance for grinding up herbs and spices!

FataMorgana

Powdered sugar is pretty much useless except for baking, where it will mix well with other dry ingredients. 10-x, as Fata says, is used in properly-made (i.e. not from odious mixes) cocktails because it's fine enough to dissolve in cold liquids.
I've made the lavender syrup to moisten genoise which were used for strawberry shortcakes and it's extraordinary!

Thanks for the info, everybody. The Vermont Country Store catalog, or Web site, has a lot of food stuffs which people think are no longer available, as well as some English items. There are lots of candies which were popular in the 60s, Walnettos, for instance. They also have a lot of cosmetics, salves, ointments and soaps which many of us grew up using. Looking through the catalog is a blast from the past for me. (I'll be 55 in a couple of weeks.)

A long-time friend was lamenting that she loves Green Goddess salad dressing, but it hasn't been available for years. I kept silent, but I was thinking, I know I have seen that dressing in a recent catalog. I found the catalog, the item was there, and it was even the brand my friend had mentioned! I ordered a couple of bottles. She was absolutely astonished. It was fun to surprise her!

this is from epicurious, and it sounds to me like the real thing. if your friend is a fan of bottled dressing, of course, she might not care for this.

1 cup mayonnaise
3 anchovy fillets, minced
1 chopped scallion
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar
1 teaspoon chopped fresh tarragon
Salt and pepper

Puree all ingredients except mayo in a blender or food processor and then add the mayo. Season with salt and pepper. Personally I would at least double the batch, except for the anchovies, and would throw in some watercress

Thanks, scallionboy!

I'll pass the recipe along, including your suggestions. I wonder if my friend realizes there are anchovies in Green Goddess?! She doesn't like seafood.

I live in a rural area in central New Mexico. I have to mention how beautiful the fall wildflowers are right now--color everywhere! Many of my cultivated flowers are blooming, as well. I'll be spending much of today outdoors, enjoying the incredible beauty of thousands of flowers.

is there a difference between culinary lavender and the other I grow, or may I use the lavender I use in sachets, thanks for the info, vickie, tidewaterlilly

The 'official' (culinary, medicinal etc) lavender is the real English lavender, Lavandula angustifolia. This is the one you really want for other purposes, too, like potpourri, in cosmetics etc.

However, any lavender can be used - it's just that the perfume and flavour of other lavenders might be different. For instance, the French and Spanish/Italian lavenders have quite a strong camphor element in the taste and smell - not quite as pleasing to the taste buds, especially.

If you can't get the English lavender, opt for any of its cultivars. But if you're buying lavender for cooking, you will (or should!) be getting the Real Thing.