|
There is no
replacement for the flavor of fresh herbs - and
no better way to keep fresh herbs on-hand than
to grow them yourself. With Spring just underway,
now is a great time to get planting
and start planning all the wonderful
recipes you can prepare with your fresh herbs!
Herbs are easy to grow and require very little
space - whether you have a spacious garden or
only a small sill for a window box, you can
easily grow and enjoy fresh herbs for your
cooking.
Why Grow Your
Own Fresh Herbs?
The best reason to
grow your own fresh herbs is that you know they
are - well - really, really fresh. Unlike
buying herbs at the market that may have been
sitting out for several days, you can
harvest your own herbs right when you
need them ensuring they are at the peak of
flavor. The other big benefit is
savings: fresh herbs can be pretty pricey
and they don't have a very long shelf life.
While you can buy one parsley plant and have
fresh parsley available all season, you
would need to buy a new bunch of parsley
every week to keep it stocked from the
store.
Getting Started
with Your Fresh Herb Garden
You can either grow
your herbs right in the soil if you have some
space in your garden or yard, or they grow
quite well in a window box. You should always
choose a spot where the plants will have
plentiful access to sunlight. Herbs can be
grown either from seed or from seedlings. It's
still early enough in Spring to start from
seed, but we find that planting seedlings speed
up the process nicely. Lastly, you just
have to choose which herbs to plant. You can
get super-fancy and plant all different
varieties, but we like to keep it simple and
focus on the ones that we use the most.
Here are our picks for the herbs we're planting
in our garden and some of the dishes where
we'll put them to use:
#1 - Parsley
Amazingly
versatile, we use fresh chopped parsley in
almost all of our recipes as a finishing
garnish. This is also delicious as one of the
main ingredients in fresh tabbouleh.
#2 - Basil
We love
Italian food. Do we need to even say more about
basil? Basil is delicious in a simple summer
tomato mozzerella salad, on a homemade pizza,
or in a rich pesto
sauce.
#3 - Cilantro
Cilantro
is a love it or hate it type of herb, and we
are definitely on the love it side of that
equation. Fresh salsa is incomplete without it,
and it's one of the secrets in our
crab cake
recipe (after the crab, of course).
#4 - Mint
Mint can be a
bit overwhelming in some dishes although it's
used excellently in many Indian and Eastern
sauces. We have to grow it in our garden each
year just for mojitos and fresh mint
tea.
#5 - Chives
A delicious
garnish for so many foods: omelets, chicken,
and our favorite - creamy
mashed potatoes.
#6 - Dill
The perfect
complement for
grilled salmon, fresh dill is another one
of the secret ingredients in our crab
cakes.
Good luck getting your own herb garden
started!
Next Article: What is
Deglazing
>back to Food Blog
Home
|
