My neighbor Rita was telling me about these blue Butterfly Pea flowers she ordered in the mail. They are said to have all kinds of miraculous healing and health supporting properties. Plus it dyes your food or drink a lovely shade of dark purple so that’s fun.

Rita gave me a jar of dried flowers to take home and experiment with. So I began by perusing recipes online for how to use these dried flowers.

I found some really interesting ones, none of which my boys would try, but oh well – I could share with Rita. The first I decided to try was purple sourdough.

Purple Sourdough

This recipe is from @fullproofbaking and was pretty easy to follow. Check out her site for more fun stuff to try.

I did about a half cup of dried flowers to a cup of liquid for my infusion.

Here’s the loaf after mixing it up. I let mine sit on the counter most of a day then put it in the fridge to rise overnight in a banneton.

Here’s the loaf after baking!

It was delicious, though I have to admit it didn’t taste too different from my usual sourdough. If the health benefits are true, it was not only good for my gut health due to the fermentation, but also might support my eyes, hair, skin, brain…

I kept a third for myself and gave a third each to Rita and another neighbor.

I was also intrigued by the Magic Color-Changing Margarita. I found this recipe on a site called Fox and Briar.

Purple Margaritas

My margaritas did not change color like the author’s did but they were still delicious so you should try them. You can find her recipe on her site. I tried to follow it exactly but found the drink too strong so I just kept adding a bit more simple syrup and lime juice until it tasted good to me.

Here was my infusion of tequila with the butterfly pea flowers. Didn’t take long for the color to deepen.

For my simple syrup, I added a bit of orange marmalade to the sugar/water mix and let it sit a couple hours then strained it. That gave the syrup a nice bit of orange flavor.

I also did not have orange liquor so I did a similar process with some plain vodka. I had about a half jar of marmalade left so I filled the rest with vodka and let it sit overnight in the jar then strained it. Worked pretty well.