I have stevia, now what?

At the beginning of summer, in an optimistic  burst of anticipated frentic energy, I bought a lot of herb starts. And I do mean a lot of herb starts. Most of them got in the ground and are thriving (I'll have to get pictures soon) but then there's the stevia. I bought a couple, stuck them in pots thinking that would make it easy to bring them inside in fall--does that even work?--and stuck the pots in a corner by the blueberries where they'd get water while I figured out what to do with them.

bonus tangential picture in the link

Here it is September (whenever that happened) and I have a couple of rather healthy potted stevia, a handful of dried stevia leaves, and no real clue what to do with either. The leaves are rather tasty and I am going to try steeping one with the tea leaves in my next cup of tea, and it tastes like it should infuse cream--or does heat destroy the sweetness? See how clueless I am on this one!

Then there's the gardening side. Can I bring it in as a houseplant for the winter? I think I need to, since it freezes here. It looks less fragile than basil and like it might work as indoors, although I doubt I'd get much of a harvest over the winter. Maybe I could do a bonsai sculpture with them...hmmm, now that's an interesting thought.

...and a picture of a japanese maple, because it's in my front yard and I like it. It's also one of the first pictures that I took with my shiny new camera that I really like.

and then there's my double super secret project, but I am going to be like FarmGirl and just tell you that I'll tell you soon...

Comments

[tanvi]

As far as I know, you can infuse your tea with the stevia. Personally, Ive only ever used stevia powder, but I dont believe that heat will hamper its sweetness.

[Joe @ Culinary in the Desert]

Maybe these links will help you?

http://doityourself.com/vegetables/sweetstevia.htm

http://www.stevia.net/recipes.htm

[Happyhealthy1]

You are on the right track by growing a stevia plant. The healing properties that the whole leaves have are amazing, did you know that they use stevia leaves in South America to treat diabetics since it is known to balance blood sugars, lower hypertension and cholesterol. I have friends who eat the leaves whole when they crave something sweet. You can make salad dressings with the dried leaves, Italian is my favorite with the whole spices mixed in. Tea is probably the most used way of using the dried leaves. You just have to be creative and experiment to find the best way to use the whole leaf!

[narenner]

What may be even more convenient for you is buying stevia in its packaged form. I've tried a few brands and can recommend SweetLeaf as my brand of choice. I think this brand definitely tastes the best and I like the variety of products they have because of how easy it is to cook using stevia as a sugar substitute. If you're still having trouble with the stevia you should definitely go to the store and pick some SweetLeaf up. I think it's in stores everywhere now.

Also, if you're going to be doing any baking with stevia I'd recommend adding a filler like mashed bananas or yogurt to your recipes to keep the amount of ingredients the same. I've had great success when using this technique. And, if you want more information, I found these videos on YouTube while I was surfing the site:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=6wwMAe_Hi0k

http://youtube.com/watch?v=s5ILDC5Cx_o