I consider it mostly a novel herb, as I am not in the habit of calorie counting, but the premise of a plant that evolved to taste intensely sweet (for what purposes?) is fascinating to me, and so when I remember I add to my herbal tisane mixes for a refreshing drink that doesn't make me have to get a cut of sugar or deal with gooey honey, but take a snip of the herb with my others I am gathering in the garden.
As I have a tendency to forget about it and use it within a good amount of time I always seem to end up with more than I need or it grows all rambly and not bushy like I'd like.
So this time around I know quite a few people who would appreciate this wonder herb and I've made some stevia concentrate for us all.
I used the following recipe from this site:
http://www.jeansgreens.com/stevia.pdf
Mostly I covered a large bunch of stevia I had with water, let it boil to the prescribed time the recipe listed, cooled, strained and voila, concentrate.
I made the mistake of tasting a spoonful just to be certain it was sweet enough and gagged at the ridiculous nectar-like ju SUPERSWEET flavor. I'm more of a savory bacon type of girl, not cakes and brownies, so I am sensitive to sweet. I mean, 40 drops equals 1 cup of sugar it says!
I only wish I had a dropper bottle I could use to gift this in so that people could measure properly. This re-used capers bottle is still pretty spiffy looking and I think its plenty for people who are experimenting. I wrapped a budding stevia stem around it to make it even spiffier :)
