Growing herbs for your kitchen is easy to do and adds flavor to your food, just as they’ve for thousands of years. Herbs have been used for centuries to add flavor, as a preservative, and for medicinal purposes. These days there are more low fat and low salt foods and recipes, so that fresh herbs are needed even more to avoid blandness and punch up the flavor. Whether you grow them at home, or buy them in the store, they just seem to give your dishes a ‘lift’ or freshness, that you don’t get otherwise. I grow the herbs that I use most often, its easy and saves on the food budget.
It’s all about the Taste
Some herbs are just better fresh; they simply lose flavor dried, or the flavor changes. I grow my own, so I always have them in abundance.
This is a picture of my first Herb garden in my new one-step house. When I downsized house wise, I started growing plants in pots. It’s just easier. (I live in Georgia, where it’s hot in the summer.)
Here we have Basil, Chives, Parsley, Rosemary, and Thyme, the basic necessities for cooking, and great ones to start with.
- Basil- is a stable in Italian and Mediterranean cooking. It’s best fresh, and can turn black it you try to freeze or refrigerate it. It must be harvested before it blooms, or the taste changes. This is my favorite herb: good in pasta dishes, but a real flavor boaster in soups and stews, when ever you make a cheese dish. I love it with fresh mozzarella and fresh tomatoes with an Italian dressing in the summer. Fresh, it always goes on last, after you’ve cooked the dish.
- Chives– So much more flavorful when fresh. Good on potatoes, seafood, dips, and omelets. I personally put chives in my Garlic Mashed Potatoes.
- Parsley– There are many kinds, but I primarily use Flat Leaf. It goes in as the last thing on a lot of dishes, but can also be used in a dish to be cooked, like a stuffed Chicken Breast (stuffed with cheese and Parsley).
- Rosemary– Here is another Mediterranean staple. My mother, of German dissent, always put rosemary in her beef stew and pot roast. A Rosemary stem, goes in while cooking, when you put in the wine. Then you take the stem out before serving.
- Thyme– This another one that is great in soup and stews, on chicken and of fish. Like many herbs, there are many Thymes, but tend to use Lemon Thyme because it goes so well with Chicken. It is used in stuffing, fish, vegetable and meat soups and stews, so it gets added a lot.
How to Grow Herbs For Your Kitchen
Whether in a pot or in the ground, the same basic rules apply:
- A very sunny location, they don’t do well without a lot of sun.
- Great drainage– they hate to sit in water, So amend the soil in the ground and add lots of compost and loose soil. In a pot -use potting soil, and make sure to use some sort of drainage apparatus in the bottom of the pot- broken crockery, for instance, to promote drainage. Only use pots with a hole in the bottom and a drip basin.
- Regular Maintenance and Harvesting– This means regularly trimming back rosemary and thyme, they get very ‘woody’ if left on their own. Basil, you must continuously cut back to that is does not flower, it will be bitter, it is does.
Harvesting Your Herbs For Your Kitchen
Basil is the trickiest- Remove the leaves from the stems and place in plastic baggie and place in a cool area, and it will stay good for about 2 week. I have not had any luck putting it in the refrigerator or in the freezer, it just gets black. At the end of the growing season, I dry my left over basil in a hanging rack and then put it in a jar for use over the winter months, the plant dies in the cold.
Chives– They grow fast, so cut regularly. For storage: you have several options. Pat dry, put them in a baggie and refrigerate, they will last 2 weeks. Cut them up small, put them in an ice cube tray, with a little oil in each square. They will keep months like this and you can ‘pop’ them out when you need them. An added benefit of Chives is that if you grow them near your tomato plants, they will help keep the bugs off your tomatoes.
Parsley- Parsley is one of the herbs that can take some cold. You could leave is out side in a sheltered place, and it will last unless you get a cold freeze. Parsley keeps well in the refrigerator
Rosemary– Many people kill Rosemary plants because they over water. Even in hot climes, check to see if the soil is dry before watering. Rosemary gets ‘woody’ and tough unless you cut it back frequently. Harvest long sprigs and stand them up in a bottle with olive oil, and shortly you have Rosemary infused oil. You can still use the sprigs for cooking. Cut Rosemary keeps will in your crisper with your veggies. Rosemary will last the winter in a sunny spot, even in a pot. Just insulate the pot with fleece and foil wrap so the soil in the pot does not freeze the whole way through.
Thyme– Thyme keeps well in the veggie crisper, but I also like to put it in an ice cube tray with a little oil. Since I use it a lot, I always have it handy in the freezer. Thyme, like Rosemary, needs to be trimmed back every week- 3 weeks. It just does better.
One Of My Favorite Recipes
I like any kind of chicken except dried out chicken and this is one of my favorite recipes using chicken and herbs. (I don’t seem to be able to roast a chicken without the herbs anymore.) Nothing fancy, it is simple with few ingredients, but I seem to like simple recipes the best. Enjoy.
Roast Chicken With Fresh Herbs
- 1 chicken (fryer) 3.5 – 5 lbs @ room Temperature (fresh is best- I just don’t think it tastes the same after it’s been frozen)
- 1/2 stick butter, softened
- 1 Orange, peel on, cut in quarters or eights, if large fruit
- 1 Lemon, peel on, cut in quarters
- 2 Tablespoons of Kosher or Pink Salt
- 4 Garlic cloves, minced
- 2 sprigs Rosemary plus 1/2 teaspoon minced
- 2 sprigs Thyme plus 1/2 teaspoon minced
- 1/2 teaspoon Oregano
- Fresh Ground Pepper
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
Mix softened butter with 1/2 teaspoon Oregano, 1/2 teaspoon minced Rosemary, minced Garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon minced Thyme. Pat Chicken dry. Slather butter/herb mix all over chicken. Salt and Pepper the outside and the inside cavity of chicken. Stuff the chicken with the orange and lemon pieces. Put the chicken in a pan and place on lowest rack of the oven.
Roast the Chicken for 15 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 375 degrees, and roast for another 45- 80 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken. Test it with a meat thermometer before you think it should be done. The thermometer should be at 165 degrees before you take it out of the oven. (Alternately, the juices should be clear, not pink when you cut at the joint of the leg and thigh.) Remove from oven and ‘tent’ it with foil for at least 15 minutes so it will be juicy when you cut it. Remove the fruit and discard it, before you carve.
As for what to drink with this, I know purest say one should drink white, but I am not a fan on white. Although the Chardonnay they have in my Wine Club, is pretty smooth and buttery. I prefer a rose with this chicken, you can find that in the Wine Club too.
Janine
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