A Little Herbage Part One and Two
I am playing catch up a little on this post, as I managed to post out of sequence.
Earlier in the week amongst everything else I have been up to, I managed to deal with the herbs that I have already dried in the past week or so and process them into storage jars.
The first item was a load of fresh thyme which I had dried in trays between tissue earlier in the week. You do not need a dehydrator for this type of processing. You can do the same with Rose petals as well. A proper dehydrator does help with more heavy duty items but herbs I tend to dry naturally. It saves the electricity. I have the herbs processed in stems and rubbed.
Basically you take a tray and line with tissue. Add your herb, then on top add another layer of tissue. You can if the tray is deep enough layer several layers into the one tray. Let dry for a few days and then process as to whether you want on stems or rubbed. I intend to dry a lot more Thyme as it is very useful for homemade tinctures and syrups for when someone has a cold as well as using in general cooking even on the stem or rubbed. I always pair Thyme with chicken and in my gravy.
The Thyme which has been "rubbed" off the stalk.
Thyme plants are something I am going to have to procure as I use a lot of it but I have never been terribly successful at keeping it alive; and as this year I am building up a new Herb garden it is a plant I would like a lot of.
One thing I always do if I can is save the stems of any herb I rub. They can be incorporated into a home made fire starter or your own homemade kindling. Some of the essential oils remain in the stalks and when a fire starter is lit you get the fragrance from the oils. I tend to keep in boxes or jars the stems whether full or chopped down until I am ready to make a batch of fire starters. They keep relatively well.
The second item was the little bunches of mint I had hung to dry in the Pantry. After a week they have now dried. I shall strip them down later on from the stem and keep the mint leaves whole for breaking down later on in the food processor, perhaps just on pulse. This is garden mint, and not the Black Peppermint that I grow for my Mint tea. I am going to try and grow some other different Mints as well. I have Apple Mint so that is three Mints for my mini collection, but there are other ones out there. The stems will also be retained for popping into fire starters as well. So nothing goes to waste.
The third item was the Dill that I had also popped up to dry earlier in the week. Having checked that it was all in good condition and totally dry. This was decanted into a glass jar in readiness for using for preserving cucumbers, courgettes and gherkins later on in the year. The jar is stuffed and I should not need to put up any more Dill this year.
Yesterday evening (Saturday) I popped some fresh Rosemary up to dry on the Dresser. That will therefore need processing at the end of the week. As well. I will dry some in stem form and also off the stem. I intend to put a load more of fresh Rosemary up as I will need it for crafting throughout the year I also at some point want to make some broth wreaths as well.
One of the benefits of making your own dried herbs is that you get a lot more flavour from the herb. I use pint jars to store my herbs and spices in and create a lot of my own items. I enjoy doing it and it gives me so much peace.
On the Eco side of things as well as keeping the dried stalks for the fire starters or homemade kindling, (I collect little twigs and lint from the tumble drier as well for this purpose. I also carry on collecting egg shells, washing them and then finishing them off in residual heat from the oven. I managed to process them yesterday and crush them all up and jar them. I keep using them in the garden and so far things have been okay. That is another useful little job off the ever growing list. Just little things but they all play a part in another jigsaw puzzle of a thing to make and use.
These stripped Thyme stems will be used as firelighter material. They will be chopped into pieces together with some wax, aromatics, small fir cones and maybe some orange and lemon peel and used to start the fire.
Today
I needed fresh milk and bread and whilst in the shop noticed that there were some herbs reduced. I have come away with four packs of Rosemary and four packs of curly leaved Parsley this time. I have already prepared the Parsley in trays for drying. I use my old freezer trays from Lakeland that do have a deep gap between each tray so you can stack the trays with things like thyme. However other thicker herbs like the Rosemary or the Parsley it is best to restrict to a single layer. Also take out any thicker stems as if left it will slow down the drying time.
On initial inspection of the Rosemary though I need to sort through it. One or two of the leaves have black marks on them. If the stalk is too badly affected I will ditch it if not just tweak off the black bits. Drying them when they are starting to go black is a no-no as it can lead to mould forming and would be a waste of time and effort in drying the herb. I will therefore check that out a little later on.
I am therefore very slowly building things up on the Herbage front. I am also going to dry the chillies harvested from the greenhouse yesterday.
Home dried herbs and chillies seem to have a lot more flavour than the version found in the shops although they are not bad. Parsley in particular is a different creature altogether.
Since then
I have gone on to buy more Rosemary and am drying it whole on the stem. There is then the Flat Leafed Parsley and the Curly Parsley which are also drying, and more Mint and Thyme. I am therefore very slowly building up a stock of useful herbs for my Pantry for the winter months. I am pretty pleased with how things are going at the moment.
The Black Peppermint in the Garden is also coming through and it will not be long before I will be planting up the Common Garden mint that I rooted from some bought Mint. That I am pleased about as I had no Common Garden Mint in the garden as well. In the greenhouse there is also Apple Mint, Dark Chocolate Mint. I do need Pineapple Mint and Ginger Mint as well though. So we shall see how things pan out.
Do you dry herbs for your Pantry shelf for use during the winter months and what do you do with them.
Catch you soon.
Pattypan
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