I'm All Mixed Up...

...With herbs and spices that is!

We are cooking a pot roast in the solar oven today and when I reached for my seasoning blend (Meat Treat) I found the jar almost empty. Time to make more of this and my other blends as well.

I find myself a rather lazy cook. I want to have my herbs and spices pre-blended so I don't have to formulate them for every meal. Over time I have learned of or invented herb and/or spice blends for everything from steak to tofu, Mexican to Chinese. For us the process begins in the garden.

Here are 3 blends of herbs we grow, dry, and combine to brighten our meals:

MEAT TREAT:
Rosemary - Easy to grow perennial in the ground or a pot. Impervious to bugs or deer.
Sweet Basil - Hot weather annual, easy to grow, pick repeatedly to keep from flowering and it will grow back.
Thyme - The regular sort, varigated or plain, perennial with tiny leaves. Harvest before it flowers.
Bay Leaves - Mediterranean Bay (the kind you get in stores) is milder. If you use the west coast native Bay Laurel, use it sparingly. We have a Mediterranean Bay tree in a large pot!
Garlic - OK, we buy garlic granules by the pound and use that. It is slightly coarser than garlic powder, and is definitely NOT garlic salt. I store it in a glass jar with airtight lid.

FISH FEST:
Lemon Thyme - Wonderful fragrant perennial, easy to grow and harvest as for Thyme (above).
Lemon Basil - Another wonderful basil. Loves hot weather. Annual that you can harvest it repeatedly and it will rapidly grow back as do all the basils. Just remember to cut it above 2 new leaf shoots.
I have never found Lemon Basil or Lemon Thyme in a store, so plan ahead and grow your own if you want to try this blend.
Dillweed - The feathery leaves, not the seeds. Plant this annual once and it will re-seed and grow forever.
Oregano - Another hardy perennial. Greek is milder, Mexican stronger, use accordingly. We prefer Greek.
Sweet Marjoram - Very fragrant annual. Relative to Oregano, used with eggs, vegies and meats.
Celery leaves - I actually grow a specific type of celery that mainly produces leaves. When I have tried to grow nice stalks of celery I always got wimpy stems with lots of leaves anyway - it just does not like our climate. I also save the leaves from celery (organic) I buy at the market and dry them in a colander after trimming them from the stalk.
Garlic - (See above)
Onion Powder - this we buy as well.

ITALIAN SEASONING:
Oregano, Sweet Basil, Rosemary, Thyme, Garlic
See above for all of these.
Fennel Seed - We buy this, toast it lightly in a small, heavy pan (we use cast iron) and then crush it slightly with a mortar and pestle.

PREPARING THE HERBS:
All the herbs listed here are harvested early in the morning after the dew has dried off of them, and hung in bunches by their stems in a well ventilated place out of direct sunlight. I like to use a rubber band to hold the bunch and a twisty-tie from vegetables I purchased at the store, or string, tied on to hang them by. The rubber band conveniently stays tight as the herbs dry and the soft stems of basil and others shrink in diameter. Woody stemmed plants such as rosemary and thyme have no problem. As to the bay, I just prune off a very small branch full of leaves and dry it and that lasts us a year or 2!

When dry, strip the leaves from the stems and store as whole leaves in airtight containers (we use glass jars) in a cool, dark cupboard. When you make a blend or use the herbs directly in cooking - that is the time to crush or chop them. Once broken they will lose their aromatic and flavor qualities faster.
By the way, you can save the stems and bundle them, tie with cotton or jute string, and throw on hot coals when grilling for herbally smoked meats.


ASSEMBLING THE BLENDS:
This is the inventive part. I never measure anything unless I have to, and cannot begin to give you exact measurements for any of these, but I do have some "rules of thumb". In all the blends you use equal amounts of the large leafy herbs (basil, oregano, dill, celery).
Grind these coarsely with a herb grinder (there are many styles, I like the Mouli Parsmint best - shown in photo) or chop with a knife. Thyme, more condensed, should be around 2/3 the amount of one of the others after grinding. Ditto rosemary. You can run the rosemary through the grinder as well.
To 1/2 cup blended herbs add 1 large bay leaf, ground, and/OR 1 Tablespoon garlic granules OR 1 Tablespoon onion powder, or 2 teaspoons fennel seed, as called for. If you use bay laurel, use less.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl, then store in an airtight container until used.

USING THEM:
Sprinkle Meat Treat over chicken, turkey, whatever, before cooking. Add 1 or 2 teaspoons to oil and vinegar with 1/2 teaspoon salt for a nice herb vinaigrette.
Sprinkle Fish Fest over any kind of seafood before cooking. Also sprinkle with a bit of lemon pepper or a squirt of lemon juice.
Italian seasoning can be added to tomato sauce for pasta, lasagna or any tomato dish.

YUM! I'm hungry just thinking about it all. Now off to transplant my basil plants (sweet, lemon, purple (for salad dressing), mammoth (mild - good in salads), and Thai). I think ahead, as I work in the garden, to the harvest and culinary delights ahead.

Eating Well...

We have been planning our garden for months.

Late winter is spent perusing seed catalogs and choosing what we need. We generally start tomatoes and peppers indoors in February, cabbage and other cole crops soon after. But only since April has the weather been such as to allow us to play in the dirt outside.

Our cole crops, onions, lettuce, chard, and peas are now planted in the garden proper. We also have overwintered garlic, leeks, multiplier onions, and early spring greens and radishes already producing in barrel containers made from the drums our soap oils come in. These barrels are critter proof and have good drainage, unlike the garden's heavy clay soil. We also filled 2 whole upright barrels (with drain holes in them) with soil and planted an artichoke in each - yet another attempt to foil the gophers from another of their favorite delicacies.

This year we are building a retaining wall and leveling out the main part of our garden. It sets back our planting dates by several weeks, so we are starting even more plants indoors to be ready to transplant when the project is done. It delays our garden harvest gratification, adding to the bit of envy we feel seeing all the early bounty in the Farmers' Markets out on the coast where the climate is so much milder (see our blog post: Time Travel - into Spring).
On the other hand, now that these markets are up and running for the season, we can get a preview of the garden delights to come.

No matter where you live, you probably have access to locally grown fresh food. As big and as urban/sub-urbanized as the United States is, there are still community gardens, small farms, and local markets virtually everywhere. Getting food from the area where you live is a good experience for many reasons. Not only is the food fresher, you get to experience what is "in Season" and close to the earth, and you support your local farmers. On top of that, the carbon footprint of local produce vs. that which has traveled hundreds (if not thousands!) of miles is much, much smaller. And, environmentally speaking, that is a huge benefit even if you leave out the part about supporting your local ORGANIC farmers.

So how to locate sources of fresh local food near where you live?
One way is to use the "Eat Well Locally" search tool to the right of this post. Another great tool is LocalHarvest. Use it to find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area. Enjoy!

Garden planning - to share...

We had four of our grandchildren here for a week in April. Once again it went from snow to summer weather in this wildly variable spring weather that has become the norm. But we had enough lovely days to begin the prep work on the garden.
In the photo you see Emily and Devan with the last of the carrots. We grow our winter carrots in the 1/2 barrels you see to the left, and it was time to take them out and replace them with lettuce and other spring greens.

Part of our garden plan is to have intentional excess to share with those who need it most. One local county food bank, Food for People, is promoting the national "Plant A Row for the Hungry" program. In the past we have taken garden excess down to local food distribution centers. Yes, everyone does appreciate good organic tomatoes, cucumbers, and even (!) zuchinni.

Another good example of one person's idea blossoming into something wonderful, the Plant a Row program can boast that: "Since 1995, over 14 million pounds of produce providing over 50 million meals have been donated by American gardeners. All this has been achieved without government subsidy or bureaucratic red tape — just people helping people." Not bad. Good, organic, local, REAL food getting to those who need it most. And a good example of how we can easily share the benefits of our personal success.

Our business, Simmons Natural Bodycare, is tiny. Barely a blip on anyone's business radar and never to be a candidate for the Fortune 500. But we can contribute to the greater good in a way defined and proportionate to our own good fortune. Thus we give a percentage of soap sales to Heifer International, our favorite all around holistic organization to help end hunger and care for the Earth, and we plant a tree through Trees for the Future for every 12 bars of soap we sell. Our success equals greater donations automatically. Yet, if our business has a tough time we still donate, just less, so it does not cut into our ability to help however we can afford to.

I am fortunate to live in this rural mountain community where neighbors look out for each other. I like to feel that, as a world community, we can be as caring.