Every Friday we go to Southlands for my daughter's therapeutic horseback riding lesson. It is part of a beautiful heritage farm, and there is always something to see, smell and sometimes even taste around there. There's a magic path around the orchard and the vegetable gardens, where chicken and lambs roam free among the old apple, pear, plum and quince trees.

Whenever I decided to leave my phone in the car, I regret it because I always find something along the way that I want to photograph and find inspiring. So I figured I'll try to start a little corner for the farm treasures I find every Friday, which is usually a very short day for me that needs to pack a punch - and usually find not time whatsoever for blogging.

Today I saw the quinces ripen on the tree and also purchased a pound from the farmer's stand at the barn. I decided to poach them in white wine, brandy, honey, lemon peel and juice, bay laef, cardamom, juniper berries and rose petals. As I type this, my house is filled with this aromatic melange of spices, herbs and fruit. And tomorrow these quinces will be served at my Thanksgiving dinner table as part of a quince and blue cheese salad.

Before I forget - here's the poaching recipe for this particular made-up poaching juice:
1 cup white wine
1.5 cups water
1 shot of gin
1 shot of grand marnier
2 shots of brandy
2 bay leaves
15 green peppercorns
6 juniper berries
5 rose buds (dried)
3 green cardamom pods, whole
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 Tbs honey
1/2 cup sugar
2-3 Quinces

Bring all ingredients to a boil, then add wedges of quince, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Cold infusion is a less-known method for creating iced teas, and has many advantages over the more common method of chilling tea or hot infusions. To start with, you won't need to spend nearly as much energy to heat and than cool your concoction. Second, and not any less important: some teas truly benefit from not being heated, as it can bring out the best qualities of fresh leaves that would otherwise be destroyed in the process of hot infusion.

Cold infusion requires more time to infuse, but that can be easily done overnight: fill a 1L jar or pitcher with 2-4 sprigs of rinsed, freshly picked lemon verbena (or spearmint, or 4 blades of lemongrass). Cover with spring water or tapwater (filtered if necessary), and let it sit overnight in the refrigerator. In the morning, you'll have a cool, refreshing beverage, which you could fill in your to-go bottle, while covering the herbs again with fresh water for a 2nd cold-infusion.

When cold-infusing fresh lemon verbena leaves, the result is a more grassy, green and delicate infusion. The citral is a little less dominant as well, giving more room for the more floral and green notes. Also, the result is a very clear water, which is most refreshing in the hot summer months. We drank lemon verbene, spearmint or lemongrass infused water all summer and they were thirst-quenching and provided little moments of sanity and a pure luxury while hydrating.

Making a hot infusion is wonderful too - and will bring out the bright yellow colour of lemon verbena. It will, however, require more planning ahead: You'll have to infuse the tea, bring it to room temperature, and than chill it for at least 4 hours, if not overnight (depending on how much power you have in your refrigerator: the one we had in the village was an ice-box size machine with very little cooling power, so everything had to be planned and thought-through well ahead).

I was first introduced to this method by my Canadian-Japanese friend Dean, who would make cold barley "tea" every summer (it's a simple infusion of roasted barley, that is very popular in Japan in the cooler months; you might be also able to find cans of this treat at the Japanese Konbiniya on Robson street - or your own local Japanese/Asian grocery store). Second time I learned about it was from Maria at Shaktea on Main: she recommended this method for making iced tea from their aromatized white and green teas (their Pomegranate & Magnolia was my first time experimenting with this method, and their Elderflower & Cantaloupe is even better this way). It might be a bit tricky with aromatized teas though: the aromas can taste a bit plastic-y and tongue-burning sometimes if they don't udnergo the heating. So you will just have to test and see for each tea if that method makes it better or worse than cooling a hot-infusion. Like the cold infusions of fresh leaves, dried tea infusions may be re-steeped a 2nd and even a 3rd time.

That wonderful lemon verbena in the gardens in the village where I was staying truly inspired me to make a verbena-soaked lemon loaf. But I didn't have my loaf pan, so I made cupcakes instead! I used a bit of semoline instead of all-flour as you'd find in most cupcake recipes. This adds a nice grainy texture, and interest to what is otherwise a very simple yellow batter. However, it is also packed with lemony tartness and aroma, from both the juice and the zest.

For the glazing, I've used both lemon verbena tisan (brought to room temperature, of course), and along with the vanilla sugar, it had an intense lemon-candy flavour, just like that of the classic Israeli lemon popsicles (which are amazing). Must be all that citral and vanillin. Mouthwateringly delicious, and would make a great addition for a Shabat afternoon tea. Shabat Shalom! 
For the batter:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup semolina (cream of wheat)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk * 
zest from one lemon
1 Tbs lemon juice

Lemon Verbena Glazing:
2 Tbs strong tisane from fresh** lemon verbena leaves
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 Tbs lemon juice
1 package vanilla sugar

- Preheat oven to 180C (350F)
- Butter and flour a dozen-cup muffin tin (or use paper cupcake liners)
- Cream together the butter and sugar
-  Add and beat the eggs, one at a time until light and fluffy
- Add vanilla, lemon juice and lemon zest, and beat just until incorporated
- Sift together the flour, semolina, baking powder and salt
- Add half of the flour mixture and mix just until incorporated.
- Add half the milk and continue stirring
- Add the remaining two halves of the flour and milk, gently folding mixing until fully incorporated 
- Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in cupcake comes out clean
- In the meantime, prepare the glazing by beating together the lemon verbena tisane, lemon juice and vanilla sugar. Gradually add the icing sugar and continue beating until smooth and runny.
- When the cupcakes are ready and have cooled down, brush them with the glazing.
- Serve warm or at room temperature. Do not refrigerate!

* Of your choice, can be dairy or non-dairy
** Substitute with dry leaves if you don’t have them.