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Category: Herb gardening

What to do with all those herbs

With all the herbs that I've dried this summer I needed to know more about cooking with them, so I recently signed up for a community education class called the Spice of Life. It was truly one of the best classes I have been to in a long time. The class was taught by a lady from the Genesee County Herb Society who's love for herbs was definitely contagious. I thought you might want to know some of the things I learned about herbs.

Did you know?

* Herbs only have a shelf life of one year. After that the flavor is just not as good. Some in our class confessed that they needed to take a trip to the compost bin.

* Freezing your herbs is better than drying them: If you have the freezer space, freeze your herbs because it's easier to do and you can use them the same as fresh.

* You should add your herbs the last 20-30 minutes of cooking because they lose their flavor with longer cooking. I am definitely guilty of this one.

* Wrapped in wet paper towel, fresh herbs will last in the refrigerator about a week.

The instructor passed around many herbs for us to look at that I never thought about growing, but will next year. The lemon thyme had just an unbelievable lemon smell. You can use it in place of lemons in any recipe. Another one I would love to try would be winter savory. My herb garden is not that big so I'm really not sure how I will get another herb plant in there but I'll give it a try.

Some more good hints:

* After you strip the dried leaves off the stems don't throw them away, make them into fire starters. Just tie them in a bundle with raffia and keep in a basket by the fireplace. I'm sure the smell it produces will be wonderful. It kind of upsets me that I didn't think of this about two months ago.

* Make an herbal wreath. Take a grapevine wreath and put fresh sage all around it. You can hang it in your kitchen and when the steam from cooking warms it up the aroma flows through the kitchen. I hope it's not raining tomorrow because I know there have to be more grape vines that need to be taken down in my neighbor's yard and I have plenty of sage.

The instructor brought in rosemary sugar cookies (I loved them) and lavender sugar cookies (they were OK). Next Friday she'll bring some recipes and we will get cooking with herbs. I can't wait - all of her recipes just sounded delicious.

You can catch up with my garden at Gardening in Lower MI.