What do you do with your fresh herbs?

[sumi]

I know, cooking What I'd like to hear is what is your favourite uses for your home grown herbs?

My DH, MIL and myself have a small garden nursery and we sell the usual suspects, comfrey, basil, thyme, chives, mint, rosemary, etc. We often have customers wanting herbs, but then they don't know what to do with them, so we like to make suggestions, for example use thyme in egg dishes, like the recipe I posted here, use comfrey for salve, basil for Italian dishes and pasta sauces, etc. I often run dry on suggestions though, so I'd love to get some more ideas.

 

[digitS']

Chives for egg dishes and thyme with roast chicken.

Of course, chives can be used just about anywhere you might use onion and thyme can not only be used in roast but chicken soup. Rosemary is better than thyme on roast beef. Unless, you want a change.

Basil is for Italian foods but if you are having Asian noodles, you'll want it there sometimes. Cilantro might be better but you may want some mint with it. Of course, cilantro is needed for Mexican dishes but I never find much use for mint.

That's a start ...

Steve

i feel a little dizzy ... should relax with a cup of anise hyssop & lemon verbena tea!

 

[ninnymary]

I find I use mint the most. I always put it on my fruit salad. I like to put 2 small mint leaves on my cheese cake squares along with a blueberry or slice of strawberry. It adds a really nice fresh taste to them. The other night my chef son finally cooked for me. He made pork chops with a chimichuru sauce made with mint. Of course, it was delicious. I also like to crush some mint leaves and slice cucumbers to put in a pitcher of ice water.

Lots of cilantro always go into my chicken soup.

Bay leaves always go into my spaghetti sauce.

But for the most part, I really don't use my herbs that much. I just like to grow them in front of my perennial border. But they sure do come in handy when a recipe calls for them.

Mary

 

[britesea]

Parsley makes a wonderful chimichuru sauce too!
I use tarragon in eggs, vinegar (tarragon vinegar is a key ingredient in my Summer Spaghetti Salad), and in a nice tuna supper salad (can of tuna in olive oil, can of white beans, olives, sundried tomatoes, mixed. Mix in chopped tarragon. I sometimes add quinoa. It's a great simple little salad.)
Lovage is a good substitute for celery (the leaves- not so much the stalks) and medicinally it's a gentle diuretic and can help with kidney stones, anti-spasmodic (for cramps), helps relieve gassiness
Nettles can be eaten as a green, and medicinally they are superb for a whole battery of problems.
Sage is wonderful for pork of course, as well as poultry. Sage tea is good for colds and flu, as well as helping to darken greying hair, and I use sage in my homemade deodorant as well.
Basil, besides being almost essential to Italian cuisine, is good for anxiety and has a mild sedative effect so a cup of basil tea is especially helpful after a stressful day. It is a mild natural disinfectant, and the aroma from fresh basil has the ability to make you feel happy for no apparent reason. A friend of mine who is pagan also swears that if you use basil when you mop your floor (in a clockwise pattern) it will attract wealth to the household (who knows- it couldn't hurt! I know she's not hurtin' financially).
I use comfrey, calendula, lavender and honey with coconut oil, olive oil and beeswax to make a homemade antibiotic salve that works really well on small cuts and abrasions

 

[Nyboy]

How do you darken grey hair with sage?

 

[britesea]

use the tea as a final rinse. It's very subtle- happening very gradually. I happen to like my silver hair so I don't use it myself

 

[AMKuska]

rosemary also makes a great conditioner for dogs and people alike. Boil a bunch until the water is tinted with color, let cool, and then work it through hair/coat

 

[Pulsegleaner]

On my patio are always pots of Cuban Oregano(Plectranthus amboinicus) and Spanish Thyme (also P. amboinicus, but a different strain) at least in years I can get them ( I have them this year, but there are years when one or the other doesn't show up anywhere I can buy plantlets; and I usually forget I can order them online). These form the core of the spicing for my weekly bowl of Horaleaky. Basically it started as a straightforward version of Greek horatiki salad but since I jettisoned the olives and peppers ('cause I don't like them) the feta (so it would keep better) and more often than not, the cucumbers ('cause I forget), use wetter (non plum) types of tomatoes and do the final mixing with either a potato masher or (at my mom's suggestion) a potato ricer it's really morphed into more of a soup than a salad; sort of like my Gushetta (bruschetta seasonings, gazpacho texture) I prefer using them to the "original" forms of thyme and oregano because the fact that both of them are actually succulents means it is possible to more or less "juice" them, so the flavors integrate in a lot faster (I have to let the stuff sit for an hour or two if I'm using the originals, with these two I can start eating more or less as soon as I'm done making it.

Other than that, it's sort of catch as catch can depending on what herbs. During the summer I often use a lot of mint, since I am very fond of Limonata (a Middle eastern drink basically made by taking a MASSIVE amount of mint, adding lemon juice sugar/honey, crushed ice and running the whole thing through a blender (and in my case, then running it through a sieve because while I like the taste, I have never gotten used to the mouthfeel off all those chopped up leaves; it feels like drinking lawn clippings.) However I usually have to BUY mint to do that, since the amount you need for one pitcher is basically an entire year's pot growth for me. And in an Ironic turn, my mint of choice, Egyptian mint (Mentha niliacea)isn't winter hardy here, so I can't just put it in the ground and let it go wild.

I use quite a bit of basil, but again I use far more than I can ever grow, so any stuff in pots is really sort of emergency basil for weeks when the store is sold out (or, like now when there is a basil blight)

I have some Holy basil outside I was going to try an make tea out of, but it turns out the strain(s) I got don't taste very good.
There're also some sprigs of Spiked Za'taar but those plants probably won't be big enough to use this year. We also have some chives, but usually forget to use them. Occasionally we have parsley or fennel, but those usually end up going to the Swallowtails, not us (once the caterpillars show up, we really don't have the heart to pick them off. We don't NEED parsley or fennel leaves to stay alive; they do.)

 

[Lavender2]

Parsley makes a wonderful chimichuru sauce too!
I use tarragon in eggs, vinegar (tarragon vinegar is a key ingredient in my Summer Spaghetti Salad), and in a nice tuna supper salad (can of tuna in olive oil, can of white beans, olives, sundried tomatoes, mixed. Mix in chopped tarragon. I sometimes add quinoa. It's a great simple little salad.)
Lovage is a good substitute for celery (the leaves- not so much the stalks) and medicinally it's a gentle diuretic and can help with kidney stones, anti-spasmodic (for cramps), helps relieve gassiness
Nettles can be eaten as a green, and medicinally they are superb for a whole battery of problems.
Sage is wonderful for pork of course, as well as poultry. Sage tea is good for colds and flu, as well as helping to darken greying hair, and I use sage in my homemade deodorant as well.
Basil, besides being almost essential to Italian cuisine, is good for anxiety and has a mild sedative effect so a cup of basil tea is especially helpful after a stressful day. It is a mild natural disinfectant, and the aroma from fresh basil has the ability to make you feel happy for no apparent reason. A friend of mine who is pagan also swears that if you use basil when you mop your floor (in a clockwise pattern) it will attract wealth to the household (who knows- it couldn't hurt! I know she's not hurtin' financially).
I use comfrey, calendula, lavender and honey with coconut oil, olive oil and beeswax to make a homemade antibiotic salve that works really well on small cuts and abrasions

I have French tarragon and should use it more. How do you make tarragon vinegar? Can it be stored, preserved? Sounds interesting! .. as well as the Summer Spaghetti Salad, tips?, recipe? please...

 

[curly_kate]

I've grown lemon balm for a while, and used it dried for tea, but I didn't realize that it's much more potent when it's fresh. With my recent insomnia & anxiety, I've been making a tea with the fresh leaves and notice a pretty distinct improvement in my mood (although it doesn't help me sleep, unfortunately). I just take about 7-8 stems, put them in the blender with about a quart of water & process just until everything is broken up. I let it steep for about an hour, strain out the leaves & stems, and drink away. It helps calm my IBS-prone stomach, too.