I have always used a lot of herbs...much to the dismay of my mother and most of my family. On the other hand I rarely use salt...also much to their dismay. The subtle (and, sometimes, not so subtle) difference in taste between chicken flavored with tarragon versus chicken flavored with thyme is amazing. Can you imagine turkey without sage? Or tomatoes without basil? Sausage without fennel? Try them - you'll like them.
Herbs, freezing: It is simple: buy a couple of plastic ice cube trays just to be used for herbs. Finely chop the herbs and put into ice cube tray. Cover with chicken stock or water and freeze. When frozen pop out and put in a freezer bag labeled with herb name. They can go into everything: drop a cube or 2 into rice as it cooks, or sauces, or soups - anything that is cooked that you would use fresh or dried for. They have the taste of fresh with the ease of dried. Some of the basil I puree with olive oil for a pesto-like flavor (Don't add the other stuff for pesto until you thaw to use.) Sage leaves I freeze whole (it is the only herb you can do this with). Just lay them flat in the freezer for an hour or so, stack them up and put into a freezer bag. Use as you would fresh for a taste of summer in the middle of winter.
Herb Gardens: My herb garden is huge - because I have always wanted a formal herb garden. It's lovely but I may not do it again. It's way more then I can possibly use and I am trimming regularly and tossing tons on the compost pile. I just clipped my chives down to about 2 inches. They were all in flower and turning yellow. Now they are all growing like crazy again and I have fresh, new chives. If you don't have an herb garden and would like one, you can do a perfectly adequate one in about 6 square feet. My recommendations would be: the perennials - 1 clump of chives, 1 clump of garlic chives, 1 sage plant, 1 rosemary - but only if you are in a mild climate (or leave it in a pot to be taken in over winter), 2 thyme plants, 1 lemon thyme, 1 tarragon, 1 oregano and 1 mint - but in a pot, otherwise next year you will have all mint, 1 oregano. Then fill in with annuals - summer savory, basil and parsley. Basil and Parsley do great in pots as well - as does thyme.
Seasonal Food True seasonal food, in my opinion, is what I pick from my own garden...but that would leave me starving for the rest of the year. When I lived in the U.S. everything was available all of the time in the supermarkets. That isn't true here. Some things are - carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, bell peppers are always around, as are inedible tomatoes and lettuce. Everything else has a season, albeit longer than my garden season. We are now seeing 'summer' vegetables from Spain and southern France: green beans, courgette (zucchini), radishes, spinach, asparagus (of course). I use the market vegetables to round out my cooking until my own are ready. I have figured out that the market season is about 4 months longer than mine - so if I am picking beans in July, I can buy them from May through August. My Brussels sprouts are ready in December - the market has them from November through February. As to the inedible tomatoes? I wait until mine are ready ...or suffer with the tasteless ones when I get too impatient...
Cooking for Two? Or more?
Our Weekly Menu Planner Service gives you healthy, gourmet dinners, carefully planned to eliminate waste and insure a wide variety of seasonal, wholesome foods each week.
All text and images are copyright © 2005 - 2007 Kathleen Lerum Zeller.
All rights reserved unless otherwise indicated
