Herbs

This picture, of course, was from earlier in the summer. But you can see the parsley in the upper right, the basil in the lower right, and the dill on the middle left. The only thing that's really missing is the cilantro.

We use a lot of herbs around here. Some of them are annuals, some are perennials and some just come up pretty much on their own without a lot of encouragement from anyone. Here are some of our favorites:

Basil – This is the heart and soul of anything Italian, so we plant a couple of different varieties every year. There are a ton of different varieties, and you can experiment with those you like the most, because it’s an annual. You have to replant it every year. We start it in the early spring in the sunroom in peat pots and transplant it to the front beds with the tomatoes and chilies when it’s safe to do so. It’s a little bit tender, so be sure to find a warm, sunny spot for it – but not hot direct sun. When it’s well established, you can begin harvesting leaves for use in cooking. Be careful to snip gently, so that it will bear more leaves.

Thyme – This is the opposite of basil. It’s a small perennial shrub, and it’s amazingly hardy. Again, it likes warm, sunny locations. But unlike basil, it will grow just fine and overwinter without any problem even in a cold, dry place like Cheyenne. We keep just one plant in the tomato/chile bed, and snip a little bit now and then when we need some.

Dill – If you want to make pickles, you need to have dill. I planted it straight from seed right next to the cucumbers and before the first row of carrots. Dill grows tall, is extremely easy to grow. So it sort of screened the cucumbers and made that end of the carrot bed smell wonderful.

Rosemary – This one lives inside. I’m sure there are places where it would overwinter just fine, but Cheyenne isn’t one of them. It’s a big perennial shrub – bigger than a sagebrush – and it lives all year in the sunroom. It would probably be just fine outside in the summer, but it’s gotten so big that no one wants to try to move it. Again, it’s a big part of pretty much anything Italian or any roasted chicken or other white meat. We snip off as much as we need as often as we want, but we can’t keep up with it. So periodically, I have to take the hedge trimmer to it. Really. The hedge trimmer. You can use the trimmings in the grill to give a nice smoky flavor to grilled meat.

Cilantro – This is the heart and soul of anything Mexican, including pico de gallo and fajitas. It's also used in a lot of Asian cooking. It’s an annual, but it reproduces like crazy. If you grew some this year, you will find a great number of its children there next year. It likes warm, sunny places but it comes on long before the tomatoes and chiles that you will pair it with for pico de gallo. No problem – use it in fajitas or some other Mexican dish. It will still be there in September when you’re ready for it.

Parsley – We keep one or two Italian leaf parsley plants in the bed with the tomatoes and chilies. Every year, we have to uproot at least a dozen of their children. If we didn’t, the whole thing would be parsley by now. The leaf varieties are a little stronger in flavor than the curly kind, but we like them better. It’s another herb that comes on early and stays late. Keep one plant around and you can have fresh parsley even in November.

Basil - purple amethyst and Genovese - and Parsley

If you want more information on the dozens of varieties of culinary herbs, this is a great website:

http://culinaryherbguide.com/

There are many, many different pesto recipes – spinach, walnut, mint, you name it – but this is our favorite basil one:

BASIC BASIL PESTO

1 large bunch fresh basil, leaves only, washed and dried – about 2 c.

3 medium cloves garlic

1 small handful pine nuts

About ¾ c. freshly grated Parmesan, or Romano, or Asiago

Olive oil 

You can do this by hand (more authentic) or in the food processor (way faster).  

By hand: Start chopping the garlic along with about 1/3 of the basil leaves. Once this is loosely chopped, add more basil, chop, add the rest of the basil, chop. Add about half the pine nuts, chop. Add the rest of the nuts, chop. Add half of the cheese, chop. Add the rest of the cheese, chop. Mash it all together in a bowl and cover with a bit of olive oil. Refrigerate until ready to use. When you are ready to use it, stir the oil in. When you stir it into your pasta, you can add more olive oil if you want a thinner pesto.

Food processor: Put the garlic in the processor bowl and chop.

Add the basil and pulse.

Add the nuts, pulse. Add the cheese, pulse.

At this point, you can either put it in a bowl or cover with olive oil for later, or you can add some olive oil till it’s the texture you want.

Then toss with some pasta, or spread on crusty bread, or drop spoonfuls on the tomato sauce on pizza crust (more on homemade pizza later).

I like to cover the leftover pesto with a bit of plastic wrap pressed onto the pesto because basil is very delicate and turns brown fairly quickly. Then I cover the bowl with more plastic wrap or a lid.

There are so many reasons to use fresh herbs and as many recipes to use them. Have fun experimenting!

 

Pesto on crusty bread, smothered in fresh warm marinara. That's all I have to say about that.