You are what you eat

An abundance of herbs--what to do? (With pesto recipe)

If you grow herbs, you may be in the same quandary as I am: what to do with them all?

I have a food dryer, so I dry those herbs that retain some flavor after drying. While Mark Bittman claims that dried basil doesn't have any flavor, I beg to disagree. I have some basil in the dryer right now. I'm also stashing some pesto in the freezer--more on that later. I'll be drying thyme later today, and have already put by some tarragon and sage.

We bring our rosemary plant in every fall, so I don't dry rosemary. I just cut the fresh stuff whenever I need some, all winter long. Same with the bay plant. We just dig them up, pot them, and put them in the east windows. I should really try potting some other herbs to have a supply of fresh leaves in winter and early spring.

Herb-infused vinegars are a great way to use any surfeit of herbs. I made a batch of basil and garlic vinegar using purple basil--the color is a deep purple-red, just beautiful. Still to come are some herb combinations, as well as the classic tarragon vinegar.

One of the books I often consult about preserving our harvest is Stocking Up III, published by the Rodale Press. It claims that blanching herbs for a few seconds before freezing preserves taste and color better than freezing them raw. I haven't tried this yet, but with the many herbs in my garden, I just may. Get the water boiling, hold the herbs by their stems and swish around in the water for a few seconds, then blot them with towels and let them cool a bit before removing the stems and freezing. You can chop them or not, according to the book. I might just try some chives this way.

Have you tried compound butters? I like to use a whole stick of butter for this. Let the butter soften at room temperature. Finely mince about a quarter cup of herbs--a single herb, or any combination that appeals to you--and use a fork to mix the herbs into the butter. I like combinations: today I made a butter flavored with basil, oregano, thyme, and chives. This butter is great on cooked vegetables, and I also frequently serve it with freshly baked baguette slices. You can add lightly sauteed aromatics, such as garlic, scallions, shallots, etc., and also a splash of lemon juice, if you wish. I generally just stick to the herbs because I think it's more versatile that way, but go ahead and experiment.

And finally, pesto is a classic. I make a big batch and freeze it in two-tablespoon portions by using an ice cube tray. Once the cubes are frozen, you can release them from the tray and place them in a freezer bag. That way you can use a cube or two any time you want to boost the flavor of tomato sauce, minestrone, etc., or just thaw out enough to toss with pasta for a quick meal. I'm planning to try some with red wine vinegar as a cherry tomato-feta salad dressing.

Here's the recipe I use ( don't remember where on the web I found it), but you can vary the ingredients to suit your taste. I don't use pine nuts as they are so expensive, but walnuts work quite well as a substitute. Traditionally, a mortar and pestle was used to grind the ingredients; nowadays, the food processor is the equipment of choice. I haven't tried using a blender for this, so I don't know if that works efficiently or not. I double the recipe for freezing.

Several recipes I've seen say not to add the Parmesan if you're going to freeze this, but Parmesan actually freezes quite well, and I always add it regardless of whether it's headed for the freezer or not.

This will also keep in the refrigerator pretty well if you drizzle a thin layer of olive oil over the top to "seal" it (helps prevent oxidation).

Basil pesto

2 cups lightly packed fresh basil leaves
1/3 cup walnut pieces
3 small to medium sized garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
salt and pepper to taste

Combine the basil and walnut bits by pulsing a few times in the food processor. Add the garlic and pulse a few more times.

Slowly add the olive oil in a stream while the processor is running. Stop to scrape down the sides with a spatula. You should have a nice paste. Add the grated cheese and pulse until blended. Add salt and pepper to taste.

First spring harvests: lovage and asparagus

How lovely it is to see green in the garden after a long, snowy winter.

Along with chives, lovage is the first herb to really show off in April. Lovage is somewhat like celery--you can see that the leaves even resemble celery leaves--but there is a darker, earthier undertone that's hard to characterize. Lovage can be harvested all spring and summer, and it dries beautifully, retaining most of its taste (unlike some herbs). It can grow to be 4-5 feet tall, and gets bushy and big around after it's been growing for a few years. You can divide it and give some away to friends and neighbors, too.

You can find a lovage-and-potato-soup recipe here. I'll be drying some lovage tomorrow.

But the real spotlight at this time of year is occupied by asparagus. Ah, how we wait each year for the first stalks, the first harvested-just-before-dinner delectable spears. This year's harvest was earlier than any previous year; we cut the first stalks on April 23. Below you can see two days' harvest from our small patch--about 4 pounds of asparagus.

Some of those spears became pickled asparagus.

For some asparagus recipes, go here.

In a time of waiting--waiting for the seeds to germinate, waiting for the last day of frost, waiting to plant all the luscious vegetables that will see us through winter--how grateful we are for these foods fresh from our garden.

It doesn't get any better than this.

Herb-infused vinegars

The herb garden is just too abundant right now, and I'm barely keeping up. I've already dried several kinds of herbs, and have more to go. Oregano and tarragon have seen two harvests so far, and I'm about to harvest thyme again. Sage, mint, lavender, lemon thyme, and basil are ready, too.

And it's time to make the herbal vinegars. These make beautiful gifts and add pizzazz to home-made  vinaigrette. They save time, because the herbal flavors are already right in the vinegar and don't have to be added when you make the salad dressing. Herbal vinegars are also wonderful in marinades or basting sauces.

There are two basic methods for extracting the flavor of the herbs. You can place the fresh herbs in a jar and pour vinegar over them, letting them stand in a sunny window for a couple of weeks, turning the jar regularly. Or you can pour boiling vinegar over the herbs and let them steep until cool. (I use the second method). I like to let the herbs continue to steep for a week or so. Whatever method you use, after steeping, strain out the herbs (I use a basket-type coffee filter in a sieve for this), and when you bottle the vinegar, add some fresh sprigs of herb to the bottle. Adding the flowers of the herb(s) is especially pretty and, if you're using white wine vinegar, will add color to the concoction (provided the flowers aren't white, of course!).

It's important to use good vinegar. Distilled white vinegar is too harsh for salad dressings (in my opinion; if you disagree, go for it!), so go with white or red wine vinegar, or sherry vinegar, champagne vinegar, cider vinegar, etc. I have also used rice wine vinegar in some infusions.

For bottles, there are several options. You can buy corked bottles at various stores (I bought some at Meijer). You can use wine bottles if the cork still fits. I've used saved and cleaned olive oil and vinegar bottles, liqueur bottles, and hot sauce bottles, as well as those beer bottles that have the wire bail ceramic-and-rubber stoppers (see here if you don't know what I'm talking about). Colored glass won't show off the herb sprigs inside, but if you're using red wine vinegar, that doesn't matter so much.

Store your herbal vinegars in a cool, dark place. I've had some of mine for a year now, and they are still good--but most sources say you should use them up within 4-6 months. Mine smell great, have no mold, etc., and with a 6% vinegar acidity, I'm not too worried.

You can experiment infinitely with herbal combinations in various kinds of vinegars, but I offer a few recipes here to get you started. You can also get some ideas at this site (although I quibble with some of her information--for example, I haven't found sterilization of the bottles nor waxing of corks to be necessary). And remember that you can use a single type of herb to flavor vinegar--tarragon vinegar and garlic vinegar are two of the most popular herbal varieties to be found in the stores.

Garlic Basil Vinegar

This simple recipe makes an incredibly flavorful vinegar. I double or triple it, because I know my daughter will want at least a quart and I'm going to need that much myself. This is a fine marinade as well as a great salad dressing ingredient.

1 cup (or more) basil leaves
8 cloves garlic, crushed
4 cups red wine vinegar

Wash, rinse in very hot water, and dry a suitable jar (or two, if need be). Place the garlic and basil in the jar (divide evenly among two jars if you need to). Heat the vinegar to boiling. Pour the hot vinegar over the herbs. Let the herbs steep until the mixture is cool. Pour into the jar or jars. Cap tightly and let steep for another week in a cool, dark place. Strain out herbs, using a sieve lined with several layers of cheesecloth or a coffee filter. Pour vinegar into clean bottle(s). Add one or two fresh basil sprigs, including flowers if available, to the bottle(s). Cork or cap and store in a cool, dark place.

Provencal Vinegar

This one uses several fresh herbs. If you don't have some of them, don't worry about it, or replace fresh with dried.

1 sprig rosemary
1 sprig thyme
2 bay leaves
2 sprigs marjoram
1 sprig savory
1 sprig lavender
2 garlic cloves
4 cups white wine vinegar

Proceed as in recipe above. When adding fresh sprigs, try to include some of the lavender flowers.

Italian Country Vinegar

2 sprigs rosemary
4 sprigs oregano
1 sprig sage
3 small stems basil
2 sprigs parsley
1 garlic clove
1 T. black peppercorns
4 cups red wine vinegar

Proceed as in "Garlic Basil Vinegar."

What's for dinner?

"What's for dinner?" will be an occasional feature here on the blog that will, I hope, give you some ideas for recipes or whole meals. I'm sure the recipes (and meals) will range from simple to, well, less simple (I'm not too big on elaborate). I'd also like them to be seasonally appropriate, but I know me, and that won't always be true.

Last night's dinner, however, was very much in keeping with the season. We had warm asparagus-parmesan salad, lovage and potato soup, and freshly baked bread (part whole wheat flour, part unbromated, unbleached white flour). I had felt the need for simplicity, lightness, and a non-meat menu. We hadn't been eating as healthily as we should, so an antidote was badly needed.

Both asparagus and lovage are part of the exuberance of spring, and asparagus is now at its peak (at least in our garden). There is nothing quite like eating asparagus you have just cut. It cooks quickly and stays bright green, and the flavor is incomparable.

You can find the lovage and potato soup recipe here. The asparagus salad recipe is below. It serves four to six people.

Note: When I cut the asparagus into pieces, I set the tips aside and add them to the boiling water after the stem pieces have been cooking for two to three minutes. They take only about a minute or so longer. Take care with cooking the asparagus, testing it sooner than you think it will be done; if very fresh and placed into rapidly boiling water, the stems will be crisp-tender in just three minutes total, including the final minute during which the tips cook.

Warm asparagus-parmesan salad

2 lbs. fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice, or more to taste
3 T. extra-virgin olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
4 oz. parmesan cheese--do not grate!
4 to 6 cups mixed spring greens (depending on number of diners)

Get a large pot of salted water boiling.

Whisk together lemon juice, oil, and pepper. Taste and add more lemon juice or pepper if necessary. Set aside.

With a vegetable peeler, shave thin slices of parmesan and set them aside.

Add asparagus pieces to a large pot of boiling, salted water (see my note above). Cook until barely crisp-tender, 3-5 minutes. Rinse briefly under cold water--briefly enough that the asparagus pieces are still warm--and drain. Give the dressing a quick whisk and toss it with the asparagus.

On each serving plate, make a bed of greens, mound asparagus on top, and top each serving with the parmesan shavings. Serve immediately.

Lovage, with recipe

I've had a lovage plant ever since we planted our first herb garden, something like six or seven years ago. I'd read about it in an herb encyclopedia and was intrigued. But for some reason, I'd never used the herb until I found a recipe in Barbara Kafka's Soup: A Way of Life and, last night, made a batch of lovage and potato soup.

I can confidently predict that I will be using lovage all summer and fall, and that I'll be drying its leaves to use in winter.

Lovage is a perennial that can be started from seed or by division from an established plant (I just gave my daughter a plant from division). I started mine from seed, not having even heard of the herb, let alone known anyone who had some in the garden. (You can get seed from Richter's.) It grows to be a bushy, tall plant, up to two feet wide and five feet tall. After the first year, we moved it from the herb garden to our vegetable garden.

It's one of the first perennials to come back in the spring, and a welcome sight it is after winter. The leaves are reminiscent of celery leaves, which is appropriate, since lovage has a celery-like taste, though more concentrated--or as my daughter said, "It's celery on steroids!" Others have noted the presence, too, of a taste similar to parsley, but lovage also has a deeper underlying flavor that's hard to characterize. Every part of the lovage plant can be used, from the roots to the seeds. Its stems are hollow, and I found a recipe here for bloody marys in which the stems are used as straws.

Lovage can be used anywhere celery is used, with the caveat that it doesn't taste exactly like celery, and that a light touch is probably advisable. As we sat down to dinner last night, my husband inhaled the aroma of the soup and said, "It smells just like celery." He ate a spoonful and said, "Yep, it tastes like celery." And then after several more spoonfuls: "I was wrong. It's better than celery." That, I think, is due to the complexity of flavor that you don't get with celery.

I haven't been to a farmer's market in a while, so I don't know if you can find lovage there or not. I never saw any when we used to go regularly, but that may have changed by now. I do hope you can find some!

Here's the recipe I adapted from Kafka's.

Lovage and potato soup

2 T. unsalted butter
1 cup thinly sliced leeks, or two onions, chopped
2 lbs. potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/4 inch thick
4 cups chicken stock
2 cups water
1 cup loosely packed lovage leaves, chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add the leeks or onion and saute at a fairly low heat until very soft and beginning to brown, which could take up to twenty minutes, probably less for leeks.

Add the potato slices and stock. Simmer the soup, uncovered, until the potatoes are very soft, 20 to 30 minutes. With a wire whisk, gently whisk the potatoes to break them up (how much is up to you). Now add the chopped lovage leaves and simmer until they are tender. Smaller, younger leaves take less time than larger, older leaves, so how long this will take is variable. Add salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Growing herbs

If you haven't grown herbs before, I'm hoping you'll give it a try.

You can wait for warmer weather and buy plants from a local nursery, or you can buy seeds and get them started indoors in a few weeks (they'll need a source of UV light). Or, if you want a particular herb or cultivar (a specific variety of a plant), you can consult a source like Richter's.

But first, why grow your own herbs? Can't you buy some lovely dried ones from, say, Penzey's, or get fresh herbs from the farmer's market?

Sure you can. But growing your own herbs means that in the summer you can mosey on out to the herb patch and snip a few chives for your salad or omelet, gather fresh basil and oregano for a fresh-tomato pasta sauce, or make up a tarragon butter for basting roast chicken.

All you need is a sunny spot big enough to accommodate whatever herbs you have in mind. Herbs like full sun, at least 4 to 6 hours of it a day, so that would be a consideration. However, many herbs will grow in partial shade, so don't get discouraged before you even start if your yard lacks big sunny areas. You can grow them along a fence, in a garden plot, or on a sunny side of your house.

I recommend starting with perennials, such as chives, oregano, thyme, sage, mint, and tarragon. These generally are purchased as plants. Keep in mind that they will be in your yard or garden for many years--you won't want to disturb them. They have a spreading tendency, too, so you'll probably want to keep them mowed or clipped back if your space is limited. Mint is notorious for spreading; we planted ours in plastic buckets that cat litter came in, with the bottoms cut out, submerged in the soil. If the container is ten inches or more, supposedly the mint can't spread. We'll see (notice my skepticism!). Or you could buy a large, patio-sized pot and grow mint in that (or any herb, really). The plants should not be set out before the date of last frost (see below).

I have a bay laurel plant and a big bushy rosemary plant among my perennials, but we have to put them in pots and bring them indoors in the winter, as cold weather kills them. Most people probably don't want to go to that much trouble! Possibly they could thrive indoors all year, but I haven't tried that.

Annuals include the very popular basils, of which there are many varieties, including Genovese, Thai, cinnamon, lemon, anise, and the stunning purple ruffles (which would make an excellent ornamental). There are many, many others. These should be started indoors six weeks before the date of last frost (around the end of May in my area of Michigan; you can find a zone hardiness map here and date of last frost for your area here) and transplanted to the soil after the date of last frost. If you don't want to start your own seeds, you can visit a nursery and buy plants. Do take a look at Richter's and see the varieties offered so you can get an idea of what's available. If you grow basil, don't stint--if you're like me you will want quite a bit for pasta sauces, salad dressings, soups, and tomato salads. Don't rush getting the basil into the garden; basils really don't like temperatures under 50 degrees and will act as if they've suffered a bit of frost if the temp drops below that.

Other annuals to consider are marjoram (actually a tender perennial that must be grown in my area as an annual), summer savory, chervil, and parsley (actually a biennial that's usually grown as an annual).

Don't forget about edible flowers when you're thinking about herbs. My favorite is nasturtium, in particular the dwarf jewel mix--beautiful brilliant red, yellow, and orange petals are gorgeous in a salad, while the leaves add a peppery bite to any salad mix. I also grow violets, which are sweet and make a nice addition to fruit salads. You can find out more about edible flowers here.

You can harvest your home-grown herbs for drying, too. The best time is when the plant has buds but has not yet bloomed. I get around three harvests of my oregano each year, and I harvest basil over a period of weeks, just to give you an idea. You can air-dry your herbs, use a food dryer like I do, or use your microwave or even the light in your conventional oven. Information on drying herbs can be found here. I dry jars and jars of them each year, and sometimes give away herb blends as gifts.

Herbs are easy to grow and demand little attention, other than not allowing weeds to choke them out before they get well established. For more detailed information on growing herbs, try this site.

Give it a try and discover how much pleasure you can get from fresh herbs. There's nothing like harvesting them, working with them, breathing in the vivid aromas as you mince them or get them ready for drying. It's such a sensual pleasure that really, you shouldn't deprive yourself of it.