Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts

I recently tried some chocolate-covered mint chocolate cookies, Fudge Mint Cookies (Back to Nature brand), recommended by a friend. Mmmm. Got me to thinking about other minty chocolate cookies. I recalled my supermarket sells Hill Country Fare Fudge Mint Cookies. They're square, minty chocolate with chocolate coating. Decided to look up more similar cookies.

I thought I recalled that Girl Scouts has a minty cooky. Yes! Thin Mints, tersely described in "Meet the Cookies".

The Google results for "girl scout cookies mint chocolate" yielded not only a pointer to the Girl Scouts Thin Mints info, but also loads of pointers to DIY recipes.

All three brands of minty chocolatey cookies, besides sharing characteristics of minty cooky coated with chocolate icing, use peppermint oil. I wondered how that differed from peppermint extract.

Contrasting Peppermint Oil and Extract

"What Is the Difference Between Peppermint Oil & Peppermint Extract?" explains:

The fundamental difference is that peppermint oil is made of pure peppermint, while peppermint extract is essentially a flavored solution—a little peppermint and a lot of something else.

Peppermint oil is the pure, concentrated oil—known as an essential oil—derived from the stems and leaves of the peppermint plant. … An extract is a mixture of an essential oil and a medium—usually alcohol—that helps carry the flavor. … Never ingest pure peppermint oil, which can be toxic in large doses.

Hmm, my bottle of "McCormick® Pure Mint Extract" lists both spearmint and peppermint oils, along with water and 89% alcohol. Speaking of peppermint and spearmint, …

Contrasting Peppermint and Spearmint

From Taste of Home's "What’s the Difference Between Peppermint and Spearmint?":

Peppermint is an incredibly pungent—almost spicy—herb. … And though peppermint is perhaps the better known of the two, it’s actually a natural hybrid of spearmint and water mint. … much more potent than its counterpart. Because peppermint is a mix of two types of mint, it contains a higher content of menthol (40% as opposed to spearmint’s 0.5%).

From Chowhound's "What Is the Difference Between Spearmint and Peppermint?":

Spearmint, containing less than 1% menthol is the far more delicate with a subtly sweet profile, and thus often found in savory dishes; much less likely to overpower other herbs and spices. … peppermint is actually a hybrid of spearmint and water mint. At 40% menthol, it is the surly, punchy and powerful member of the Metha family, and the intensity of it’s “minty” flavor borders on spiciness, earning it a fitting name.

Both Taste of Home and Chowhound sites contain expansive explanations and also links to recipes that use either kind of mint.

Other Sweetish Scent o' Mintal Thoughts

My mind meandered to mint flavored sweets. Hmm, Junior Mints, Peppermint Patties, Andes Mint candies, grasshopper pie, mint chocolate chip ice cream, …

I also thought about articles I'd written that contained mint: Minty Choco Chip Pudding and Minty Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies

My mind started percolating about another cooky recipe that would integrate yellow cake mix, mini chocolate chips, mint extract, and blue food coloring. This cooky should resemble mint chocolate chip ice cream. I needed to confidently determine the amount of extract and food coloring to use.

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Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 1, Sweetish Thoughts
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 2, Nose 4 Mints N Chips
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 3, Spearymintal Choco Chip Cookies
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 4, Choco Unadorned/Coated Minty Cookies
Scent o' mintal Journey, Part 5, Choco Minty Sandwich Cookies

Gopher Plant aka Silver Spurge aka Euphorbia Rigida

The plant had mystified me when I first spotted it in May 2019. Since then, I'd taken a few videos and stills of it, and a couple from a different site. Earlier this year, I stumbled across a YouTube video that included a snippet and ID (Euphorbia rigida) of the suspect plant. Google search results for "silver spurge euphorbia rigida" also show several plants that resemble my images.

In poring over additional web info, I concluded the intriguing plant is a gopher plant, aka silver spurge, aka Euphorbia rigida. (That scientific term causes me to think it best to copy/paste it, as I might easily mistakenly spell euphoria instead of Euphorbia.)

Some enlightening sites:

"Euphorbia rigida Also Known As Gopher Plant Rigid Spurge" shows a gallery that includes several pix with leaf formations that are similar to my images. It also explains one of its plant terms:

Rigid spurge? Sounds like more of a social disease than a great garden plant. ... The upright stems are clothed in long, pointed, powder-blue, deer-resistant leaves. In very early spring, the ends of each stem are adorned with yellow bracts similar to a miniature poinsettia.

Bract? From Garden Word of the Day site for "Bracts": "Bracts are specialized or modified leaves. ... The presence of bracts, or lack thereof, can help you identify plants."

Gopher Plant Care: Learn How To Grow Euphorbia Rigida provides overview and info about the plant's name.

It belongs to the Euphorbia genus, named after Euphorbus, a Greek physician who is credited for introducing the Euphorbian plants. ... Native to the Mediterranean and Middle East regions, the gopher plant is a low-maintenance plant-type and a drought-resistant evergreen.

Euphorbia Rigida or Gopher Plants also provides overview of the plant. The explanation for why "gopher plant": "The same milky sap that causes irritation to humans also repels rodents and small mammals like gophers, hence the plant's name."

The video includes stills and clips that I took 5/23/2019, 6/1/2019, 8/6/2019, 3/18/2020, and 8/2/2010. Near the end, a four-footer makes a guest appearance, with a few other hoofers making cameos. BTW, deer hooves are special, according to "Hooves make everything deer do possible".