Stevia info and help needed.

i bought a few stevia plants from the nursery yesterday.

has anyone here had experience growing and or eating/cooking with this?

i tasted a bit of a leaf, and it was curiously sweet with a tiny bit of bitter green flavour in the background.

my first thoughts were to use it in tomato sauce to help sweeten it instead of sugar, but i'm not sure if the sweetness goes away if cooked too long, almost like basil.

any help is appreciated.

buckytom said:

i bought a few stevia plants from the nursery yesterday.

has anyone here had experience growing and or eating/cooking with this?

i tasted a bit of a leaf, and it was curiously sweet with a tiny bit of bitter green flavour in the background.

my first thoughts were to use it in tomato sauce to help sweeten it instead of sugar, but i'm not sure if the sweetness goes away if cooked too long, almost like basil.

any help is appreciated.

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Hey, Bucky. I haven't tried it myself, but it's my understanding that it's *much* sweeter than sugar, so very little goes a very long way. Be sure to experiment carefully, and let us know how it goes

I would be very curious to know how it goes as well, so far I have only seen it around here in granule form and mixed with cane sugar fifty fifty.

I want to know how it goes too. I find it difficult to believe that it is sweeter than sugar, but it's possible.

Bump!

I bought a couple of small stevia plants for one of my herb pots. It's VERRRRRRY sweet, like saccharin, for anyone who remembers that.


I bumped this up to see if anyone has new info and/or ideas on how to use this plant.

Lee

Here's a site that has tips on growing and some recipes:
http://www.stevia.com/Stevia_article/Growing_Your_Own_Stevia/8077

I bought some Truvia, which is the sweetener made from stevia.

Out of the package, it's texture resembles sugar, granulated, not powdered like most sweeteners. It was VERY sweet! It also smelled strongly of vanilla. I don't know if that is from the plant itself, or if it's in the processing of the product, but it definitely smelled like vanilla sugar.

Once I put it on my cereal, much of the sweetness went away. Diluted in the milk, I thought it was less sweet than either Equal or Splenda.

I know my post is about the product instead of the plant, but that's all I know!

Grew it a few years ago and it isn't hard to grow. The issue here in the PNW is the dang slugs have a sweet tooth LOL! But it was nice to crush a leaf and garnish iced tea.

Thanks for the link to recipes, Mama!

Looks as if they mainly use stevia extract. And here's how to make THAT http://www.ehow.com/how_2083187_make-stevia-extract.html

I think I'll have enough stevia leaves later in the season to give this a try! And then I will make a couple of those recipes!

Cool!

Lee