Insert Flavor Here
Spring is here! Blossoms are popping up all over the place, the grass is turning from brown to green, and the birds are singing eagerly!
I think that we can all agree that while being hunkered down in COVID-19 quarantine, we’re especially grateful for the warmer weather so we can venture outside and enjoy a change of scenery.
We’ve planted most of our garden at this point (blogs to come!) and this week I finished planting my herb garden.
After living in apartments for years and traveling for schooling, we landed in a house about 4 years ago—our first house! Our yard wasn’t huge, but there was enough space to play around and grow a garden. We built a terraced garden along the hill on the side of our new digs (pictured below). I could go on all day about the benefits of gardening (and I probably will in upcoming posts), but the garden is not the star of the show today.
After we built our raised garden beds in our first home, my mom helped me to use the leftover wood to build an herb garden box for the porch. This box is very meaningful to me. It represents the first garden that we planted as a young family and our excitement to grow our own, organic food. We’ve felt so much joy working in the garden with the fam! The kids are so enthusiastic about what’s growing and how we can eat it and cook it. There’s something magical about sitting down to eat and feasting on what you’ve grown!
The first time I filled the small box with fresh soil and an array of herbs, I had a distinct feeling of, “This feels right.”
4 reasons to consume fresh herbs:
To connect you natural, aromatic flavors (as opposed to additives and sweeteners commonly found in processed food).
To improve your health. Herbs have loads of health benefits and integrating them into your current recipes pampers your body.
To connect you to day-to-day soil and growth. Herbs are not one of those things that get better over time. The fresher the better!
As a parent, I want my kids to be accustomed to the taste and smell of fresh food. Starting them young on flavors like oregano and mint and thyme can help them to appreciate and identify those flavors in our cooking rather than being scared of the green stuff (does this happen in your house too?).
I love having my hands in the soil and fresh flavor available just steps away from the kitchen. I painted the beautiful, wood planter a bright teal with some leftover paint that I found in the garage left by the previous owners, and then distressed it slightly. It stood on our porch for two years full of vibrant herbs during the summer and earthy succulents during the winter.
We soon decided to make a move across the state and of course the herb garden came with us! We couldn’t move the entire garden, but taking the herb garden planter helped me to feel like we took take a piece of that first, family garden.
When we moved to our new house, we got to work planning and building a new garden! This was ironic, because when we assembled the first garden I told my husband, “Don’t worry, we only have to do this once and then we reuse the soil and boxes each year!” And low and behold, here we were building garden boxes and hauling soil again. Oops! This time we planned a couple more boxes and it’s working out great!
And, what do you think we have on our front porch?! That’s right, the herb garden! This week, I freshened it up with a coat of white paint. I couldn’t help but distress it slightly with a sander to expose some of that original teal. We filled it with fresh soil and planted a few of our favorite herbs—rosemary, basil, and mint to name a few.
Using fresh herbs is one the easiest tricks for boosting flavor in cooking. Do you have favorite herbs you like to cook with?
My top 5 favorite ways to USE fresh herbs:
Fresh basil leaves on homemade pizza or bruschetta. The sweetness of the basil really enhances the freshness of a meal! I go through so much basil that I decided to plant a couple rows of it in the garden this year!
Simple, infused water with frozen berries and mint leaves. I love the color and the taste! Plus, it’s easy to mix up the flavors by adding a little extra raspberry or a slice of lemon, etc.
Grilled rosemary potatoes, roasted on the BBQ with olive oil, garlic, salt, and fresh rosemary. This is a copy cat recipe of one of our favorite Seattle restaurants.
Drying fresh herbs to store and cook with. This works especially well if you’re nervous to grow your own. You can purchase fresh herbs from the store for only a couple bucks, wash, and then dry them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet (at the lowest temp your oven will do you for 2-4 hours or until they crumble easily). I store them whole in mason jars and crumble when I’m cooking.
Homemade Focaccia Bread! Holy Hannah, this stuff is so good! My kids and husband go crazy for homemade focaccia bread. We always run out and it’s a life saver when trying to get the kids to eat soup (why don’t they love soup?). We pack this soup-dipper full of fresh or freshly dried herbs into this recipe and it is fragrant and mouthwatering. It’s also REALLY easy to make and my 2 oldest are learning how to do it on their own.
One last herb trick I picked up in France is to cut them in a mug using scissors. Seriously guys, you’ll never go back to a cutting board. So much cleaner and faster.
Grab some fresh herbs and insert some flavor to your favorite recipes! Happy Spring, all!
-Whitney
