By: Joe Scrizzi

February is the Month for Love! The Love of Food & Fusions! Follow along every week during this month for 2 Fusions each week. My first experience with Infused Honey’s was back in the mid-90s while at a Bed & Breakfast at an ocean resort. It was quite the experience of sweet & herbal and the way it was incorporated into other foods besides desserts. Since that time, I have been making all sorts of infused foods and today I’d like to share 2 types of honey’s that I make on a regular basis every week.

First up is Citrus Honey, any type of citrus juice can be used, here I used lemons that I had on hand. Scrub the peel well, zest and mince fine (set aside), cut into 8 wedges. I warmed up the jar of honey I had to make it easier to work with. Measure out ½ C in glass or ceramic bowl, add juice of 1 lemon wedge and sprinkle in some lemon zest. Move quickly to incorporate, taste and adjust more lemon juice to taste. This can be stored on the counter or fridge.

I use Lemon Honey in teas, cocktails, drizzle over pound cake, pancakes, waffles, salad dressings, drizzle over seafood/fish, chicken and even mix with cough syrup.

Second, we have Pepper Honey. Same as above, warm the honey up, measure out ½ C and add pizza pepper flakes. I added 1 tsp pepper flakes and 1 tsp red wine vinegar to loosen up the mixture a bit to incorporate. For this variety, that is pretty much it. Next, I’ll experiment with using cayenne pepper, which can be tricky because you don’t need a lot of cayenne to taste it. It’s a heat that will linger and sneak up on you. If you wanted to try this, I would go with ½ C Honey to ½ tsp cayenne and let set until flavors blend, then taste.

Since making this pepper honey, I split it into ¼ C each for 2 recipes.

¼ C Pepper Honey, 1/3 C Fresh Orange Juice, 2 tsps orange zest (minced), season with Salt, whisk and marinated some raw shrimp. Did a quick sauté, served over rice with a salad. Perfect!

¼ C Pepper Honey, 1/3 C Lime Juice, 2 tsps lime zest (minced), 1 clove garlic (minced), salt and pepper to taste, 3 T olive oil, mix up and toss with 1 bag shredded cabbage, 2 grated carrots and 1 bunch chopped scallions. This turned out great and was a work in progress, adding a little of this and little more of that. Served with pulled pork, topped tacos and ate the rest as a side salad.

I hope you find this fun as I did and there’s more to come next week!

Bon Appetite