Preserving herbs

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

The frost hit my neck of the woods a bit later this fall than it normally does, giving me a few more weeks than usual to enjoy my roses roses, mums and herbs. The rest of my garden was gone in October. When I figured the herbs were at the end of their peak, I knew it was time to harvest them all or lose them to the frost.

I made a jar of Italian Seasoning by combining dried basil, thyme, marjoram, parsley and oregano from my garden. It was so easy it was practically cheating for me to choose my herbs: I had bought a pot of assorted Italian Herbs in the spring. A few weeks ago, I harvested everything green on it and it was in a jar in my pantry two hours later.

Home-dried Italian Seasoning
A combination of some or all of the following herbs.
Basil
Thyme
Marjoram
Parsley
Oregano
Rosemary
Sage

Wash the herbs and place in dehydrator. Dehydrate at 105 degrees until leaves are crispy (about an hour or two).

Transfer the dried herbs to a plastic bag, seal it, then squeeze the bag to crush the herbs. Snip a small hole in one corner of the bag and funnel the herbs into a clean glass jar. You can use the jars with the holes in the top for sprinkling directly onto food, but to really bring out the flavours of the herbs, crush them with your finger tips right into your food as you cook them to release the aroma and oils. You can also dry herbs by air-drying (hang a bunch of herbs upside down in warm, dry room).

You can also freeze herbs by adding chopped herbs to water or oil in ice cube trays. Then just pop out a frozen herb cube to add to cooking like soups, stews and sauces.These rosemary cubes will be great later in mashed potatoes or pasta sauce.

Other tips for preserving herbs: don’t wait until herbs are past their freshness to dry them, preserve them at their peak for maximum flavour and nutrition. Don’t overheat them when drying (air drying is probably better than dehydrator drying for that purpose). Freezing would be better for herbs like chives and ginger that don’t dry well.

In other news, a big thank you to Liveblissful and Eat Breathe Yogini for honouring me with two awards this month: Liebster Award (by both) and Blog of the Year by Liveblissful. I’m deeply flattered. Thank you very much, ladies!

July in the garden

Posted on July 19, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

I love summer. I look forward all year to my summer garden and I’m one of those people who love the heat

Here is a photo of the harvest I was collecting daily in my garden last July, currently my blog header. Is that a gorgeous sight or what? I was so proud of my homegrown food.

This year…. the vegetables are not so great. My spinach and rhubarb are done for the season after a meager harvest and the rest of the vegetables are doing poorly. The peppers and zucchini aren’t up yet, still just flowers, which could be a pollinating problem, or too much heat. I’ve chatted with neighbours with vegetable gardens and they are reporting the same frustrations.

I tried two cauliflower plants this year; both ruined by heat and caterpillars, see photo of all the eggs in the cauliflower. Gross.

On the positive side, we are reveling in a plethora of raspberries right now.

I’ve been making raspberry smoothies, raspberry jam, raspberry muffins, and of course, just eating them fresh off the canes.

Strawberries are doing well too this year. I moved them to different location than they were last year, and that has resulted in less ants in the containers. Growing my own fruit and vegetables makes me deeply appreciate organic farmers; keeping insects away with no pesticides is quite a challenge.

The Saskatoon berries never came up, too much damage from the animals in the spring; hopefully we’ll get a good harvest next summer. For the first time in a dozen years, our mulberry hasn’t had ripe fruit by June, the berries are still small and white, though they look like they’ll be ready to eat in a week or two. The herbs are hanging in there with the heat. We finally had rain this week, which was desperately needed, my rain barrel was just about empty.

Anyone with tips for organic fruit and vegetable gardening? I’d love to hear your comments.

Artisan Bagels

Posted on May 24, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

I’ve tried making homemade bagels in the past, but they have always turned out too dense and chewy until I found the bagel recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It was easy to adapt to make our favourite flavours, including cinnamon-raisin and garlic and herb, with fresh basil and chives from our garden. They turned out great! Not as fluffy as store-bought ones, but still a super taste and texture.

The authors have posted the bagel recipe and some modification ideas on their here here.

May in the Garden

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Sarina @ Earthgiven Kitchen

Newly planted vegetables: spinach, red pepper, zucchini, cauliflower, celery, and cilantro. Perennial herbs from last year: chives and lavender. Chives are the heartiest thing in my garden. They last until late fall and are the first to come up in late winter. Most of our veggies are in containers and this works well for us with our small backyard for many reasons: being two feet off the ground makes it less likely for rabbits, groundhogs and other animals to destroy them, I can easily switch up which veggies I want to grow each year, I can control the quality of the soil and I can easily move them around the yard to maximize sun exposure.

Fruit that will be ready to pick later this summer: strawberries for the fifth year (one plant from last year actually survived; the rest are new), raspberries for the eighth year (last year’s harvest was about 1,000) and Saskatoon berries for the second year (last year’s harvest was a pitiful two; our resident groundhog destroyed much of the bush so we hope it recovers well this year).

Pot of Italian herbs: basil, parsley, etc.

Newly planted cauliflower

What to do with an old metal gazebo we don’t use anymore? We upcycled the legs to hang our strawberry plants and to deter animals from coming in the garden. We also used a piece as a rose trellis:

By the way, the rose above is called Breath of Life and will be in full bloom in about a month. It grows like a weed and has the nastiest thorns but the prettiest pale pink blooms. If you want a hardy, climbing rose bush that will grow quickly up a wall or arbor, it makes a good choice, but it’s a beast that can take over your garden if you don’t cut it back regularly. Here’s a pic from last year:

Breath of Life rose

Can’t wait to begin harvesting fruits and veggies this summer!