Click Here!
You are here: Home > Cooking, Herb Gardening, Paula Kraus > Herbs: A Great Alternative to Seasoning With Salt! – By Paula Kraus

Herbs: A Great Alternative to Seasoning With Salt! – By Paula Kraus

I had a blast helping Barson’s Greenhouse – http://www.barsons.com/ – celebrated their 30th year in business over the weekend. I taught the cooking and preserving herbs’ class. Barsons also offered a number of other gardening classes to educated there customers on topics such as canning and butterfly gardening.

Herbs, what a great alternative to seasoning with salt!

A few of the most noteworthy tips:

* Pinch back your plants to increase branching, so you’ll get more leaves to harvest. * Pinch off flowers to extend the leaf production (use chive flowers in salad). Pinch at the node, where usually two tiny leaves are starting to sprout. * Harvest and dry herbs all summer long. Don’t wait till the end of the season to figure out what you want to do with them. * Use a rattan paper plate holder as a drying rack. Carry one with you when you head out to the garden. Set it on top of the refrigerator, where warm air circulates. * Never harvest more than 50% of the plant. * Use a three to one ratio of fresh herbs in place of the dried herbs called for in a recipe. Three teaspoons of minced fresh herb in place of one teaspoon of dried herb. * Freeze chopped fresh herb in ice cube trays. Fill the cell with herbs and enough water to cover them. Then freeze. Use one cube in place of three teaspoons of fresh herbs.

Here’s my favorite basil recipe – I hope you like it!

Spencer’s Modified Pesto

1 Cup Basil leaves, fresh 1 Tablespoon Pine nuts 1 clove garlic 1/2 teaspoon salt (optional) 1/4 Cup Parmesan cheese 1 Tablespoon Romano Cheese 1 1/2Tablespoon Margarine or Butter, softened 1/4 Cup Olive oil, virgin

Combine the first 7 ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth & thick. Then slowly add the olive oil.

Notes: Store pine nuts in the freezer. Toast nuts first at 350 degrees, turn every 5 minutes till light brown color.

I use the pulse button to process the first ingredients, then use the on button to add the oil.

Substitute the pine nuts with chopped walnuts, almonds, or pecans.

Toss the paste on pasta, with a salad – for a meal. Or, pour three or so tablespoons over a softened 8 ounce block of cream cheese and serve with crackers or toasted baguette slices as an appetizer.

Freeze leftovers in an ice cube tray. Drop one or two cubes in spaghetti, chili, soups for an extra zing.

Paula Kraus is a Master Gardner and owner of ‘Paula’s Plant Plugs’ - http://paulasplantplugs.com/index.html and ‘Seven Sisters Herb ‘N Garden’. She specializes in herb gardening, landscape restoration and plant plug horticulture.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  • Digg
  • Del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Twitter
  • RSS

8 Responses to “Herbs: A Great Alternative to Seasoning With Salt! – By Paula Kraus”

  1. Many of us don’t realize that indoor herb farming is a very simple hobby. Besides the delight this brings, in addition, it provides your own supply of herbal products you should utilize with the food prep or perhaps as medicine. You’ll find a wonderful indoor herb garden kit for you on the internet and this will let you begin your own beneficial herb garden.

  2. Z1 guy says:

    Nice site. I just bookmarked you on my bloglines.

  3. ICM says:

    A definite great read…

  4. Hey, thanks for the blog post.Much thanks again. Much obliged.

  5. Emily says:

    This story had some good info! I’m going to re-tweet it to my co-worker and see what they think. I’m always getting stuff in my email from them, so I might as well share some cool things I find. Thanks,

    K. Littler

  6. Patty says:

    My cousin recommended this blog and she was totally right keep up the fantastic work ;)

  7. jbird556 says:

    This story had some good info! I’m going to re-tweet it to my co-worker and see what they think. I’m always getting stuff in my email from them, so I might as well share some cool things I find. Thanks,

    K. Littler

  8. Moshe Cornford says:

    Hi there, just wondering how I may contact the owner of this website? I have my own health website and was interested in featuring your blog.