Pimm's Originals ♥ for a Mother-Daughter Weekend

Today's recipe: An easy summer cocktail, Pimm's liqueur with ginger ale and slices of cucumber, orange and lemon.

Yes, there's a recipe here, a traditional summer drink from England. But mostly, this is about mothers and daughters and how friendships can cross generations. I'm in a story-telling mood: many will not be interested, please feel free to scroll down to the recipe!

The story starts in the early 1950s when five girls left home from across Canada to attend the University of Manitoba's college of Home Economics. They were Margie and Shirley (my mother) and Willie and Betty and Meryl -- all those -y names, any surprise Meryl was some times called Merlie? Two were roommates but since the girls were in different graduating classes, they met but really didn't know one another.

Fast forward five years. All the girls -- women, now, of course, new grads and young professionals -- took jobs as county extension agents in rural northern Minnesota, each one 20 - 25 miles apart from one or two of the others. (Signs of the times: county extension agents were not allowed to smoke in public nor -- how funny is this? -- to shave their legs.) In 1955, the five piled into a two-door white Chevy Del Ray coupe named George with a red roof and a monstrous trunk for a two-week road trip to a home ec convention in Seattle. They were a fashionable bunch: four wore skirts and one, the Katherine Hepburn character, wore lined wool Bermuda shorts. Five was a magic number: one to drive, four free to play bridge. On two-week road trips, you either form life-time bonds or never speak again. These five, they bonded.



Fast forward five years. Four of the women married Americans, stayed in the States and eventually became American citizens; one returned to Canada to marry an Englishman. They continued their careers, raised their families and like busy people do, kept in touch with Christmas cards and very occasional visits, one family with another.

Fast forward 40 years. Retired now, the five women and their husbands come together for the first OCHER -- Old Canadian Home Ec Reunion [o-ker] -- a grand reunion, the five together for the first time in decades, some of the husbands meeting for the first time. OCHER II and III soon follow, moving from Florida to Minnesota and back to Winnipeg, home to the University of Manitoba. During OCHER III, they happen upon a wedding. For good luck, the bride and groom want their picture taken with the five OCHER couples who collectively have been married more than 225 years.

Fast forward 10 years. By now, one of the OCHERs, my mother, is gone. The four OCHERs meet in Michigan, this time sans husbands. Some time mid-cocktail, they begin to fantasize about a future weekend gathering, still all women, but two generations, they and their daughters, a sort of Ya-Ya Sisterhood gathering. None of the daughters really know each other as adults, most had never met. Could it ever happen? Surely not. Could a date be found? Surely not.

Fast forward one year to this weekend. The OCHERs and their daughters -- already dubbed the YaYas -- boarded planes, trains and automobiles to reach St. Louis from Saskatchewan, Colorado, Michigan, Maryland, Minnesota and Virginia. We spent three days making introductions and reminiscing, exploring St. Louis and just sitting on the patio, cocktails in hand. Because daughters do learn from mothers and women do learn from women, here's what I learned during our extraordinary gathering.

It pays to dream big. Without the OCHERs daring to dream, this weekend would never have been.
It pays to say "yes" not "maybe". If any of us had hesitated or said "yes" and then didn't act, it wouldn't have happened.
It pays to keep your friends from so many years ago. They know you in ways your newer friends simply cannot.
Women in their 70s? In the ways that count most, they're the same women as in their 20s.
Eight women with bright hats and big flowers attract attention like butterflies. Strangers stopped us to ask, "What is your group?" Strangers asked to take our photograph. Who knew that colored hats could be so much fun? (Willie did!)



During a weekend with "many highs and no lows" (Meryl), amazing moments occur almost by accident: like drinking surprise bellinis in the shadow of the Gateway Arch, the waters of the Mississippi lapping at our toes, jazz playing at the tour boat a few yards away.
It pays, when you're hosting, to ask for help.

Half of us stayed at my house, half across the street at my neighbors. Thank you, Doris and Max, for making everyone feel so at home!
Ed, Molly (my neighbors) and Skye (their dog) rescued Margie when she arrived two hours early and reached my house only to find nobody home because we were picking up the first arrivals at the airport! Thank you, Ed and Molly!
Imagine feeding eight people for four days without spending every waking hour in the kitchen. I cooked just one -- one! -- meal. After that, we were fed -- sumptuously, right here in my own home -- by the St. Louis' hot new personal chef, Karen Tedesco of DinnerStyle and her food blog FamilyStyle Food. One of the OCHERs said, "... the food was interesting and delicious and so seasonal and personal that it only added to the pleasure".
Imagine a personalized tour of St. Louis from a St. Louis native -- neighborhoods, old stories, little bits of St. Louis trivia. Thank you, Jim, for being our amazing tour guide.

It pays to 'arrange' for good weather. Bookended by cold and rain, our weekend was a spring-perfect 70 and sunny.
Hearing the women who loved your mother most talk about her -- it's humbling, it's emotional, it makes you realize all over again how much she's missed.



Wow -- good guests make hosting a complicated few days extraordinarily easy. I learned much about being a good guest: going along, no special orders, pitching in, adding to the fun. No e-mail, no long phone calls home: all of us were completely present.
Remarkable women bear remarkable women.
And okay, yes, there is a food angle, entirely unexpected, one we didn't even realize until late on the second day.

One Yaya has two connections: she is an engineer who works with water purity issues, we talked much about the question of pharmaceuticals that reach our water supply. She and her husband also farm 2000 acres in Colorado.
Another Yaya has two connections: she and her husband are the second generation to farm the prairies of Saskatchewan, wheat, cattle, sheep. She's also a physician and thus much concerned about wellness issues.
Another Yaya's husband is in the military and so they have moved often. Even so, every place, she manages to plant a small garden and now also belongs to a CSA. With two children, she is much concerned about nutrition and wellness.
And of course me, writing about food and immersed in the food blog community where we watch and talk about sustainability, local products, scratch cooking, food safety and more.
The four of us were also quite struck by how much, in our own ways, we followed our mothers' paths, how related our own work is to theirs.

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To the OCHERs, it was such a pleasure and an honour to be part of your weekend, and to get to know you! (Anne) It was really neat to spend time getting to know the important women in our mothers' lives. (Kirsten) Thank you for showing us how family and career can work, how (and more importantly why) to feed and nourish the friendships of our youth. Thank you for showing us grace. Thank you for laughing, laughing, laughing ...



To the YaYas, to Kirsten, to Michelle, to Anne (and also to Heather and to Adanna who were unable to join us and were muchly missed), thank you for sharing your time, your spirits, your mothers. I'm willing to bet that thanks to our own 'road trip,' a long time from now, we will all still be friends, we will all still laugh over bright hats with big flowers and so much more. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for coming.

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MORE RECIPES for DRINKS & SMOOTHIES with VEGETABLES
~ Cucumber Lemonade ~
~ Parade-Day Gin & Tonics (a Rass special) ~
~ Tomato Gazpacho ~
~ more recipes for drinks & smoothies ~

PIMM'S ORIGINAL

Hands-on time: 5 minutes
Time to table: 5 minutes
Serves as many as needed

2 parts Pimm's liqueur
2 parts ginger ale
2 parts lemonade (we just used more ginger ale)

For each glass -
1 slice lemon
1 slice orange
1 slice cucumber
1 slice strawberry (we were out)
fresh mint

Mix and enjoy. Mothers and daughters preferred but not required.

PRINT JUST A RECIPE! Now you can print a recipe without wasting ink and paper on the header and sidebar. Here's how.

NEVER MISS A RECIPE! For 'home delivery' of new recipes from A Veggie Venture, sign up here. Once you do, new recipes will be delivered, automatically, straight to your e-mail In Box.

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Do you suffer from lachanophobia? Turn to A Veggie Venture and Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg for the best vegetable recipes online. Find a quick recipe for tonight's vegetable in the Alphabet of Vegetables or plan menus with vegetables in every course. If you're a dieter, turn to hundreds of zero-point, one- and two-point Weight Watchers recipes and many low carb recipes.
© Copyright 2008

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Easy Spinach Nests ♥

Today's recipe: An easy egg supper or breakfast recipe. Fresh sautéed spinach cooked with an egg in the center. Low carb. Weight Watchers 4 points.

Dads and breakfasts: in my family, this is a recipe for great memories. When my sister started kindergarten, our mother went back to work and our dad went back to the kitchen. Dad cooked breakfast every single day -- and without resorting to boxes of cornflakes or quick slices of toast. Instead, he had a Breakfast Plan, a two-week menu written on yellow lined paper taped to the inside of a cupboard. Oatmeal. Fried eggs. Every other Friday, hamburger patties with tomato soup. (Yes ...) My favorite day was the first Thursday when Dad made gashouse eggs, a slice of bread with a circle cut from the center, then fried with an egg. Other people call them "egg in a hole" and "toad in a hole" and "hobo eggs" and more.

I couldn't help but reminisce about Dad's breakfast specialties while waiting for the eggs to cook in these nests of fresh spinach. Hmm, perhaps this is a recipe for a low-carb toad-in-the-hole?

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FREE ICONS for BLOGGERS Share your love of fresh produce, whether from the farmers market, your own garden or even a CSA farmbox. Four icons celebrate fresh local vegetables and fruits -- and my fellow bloggers are invited to use them on their own blogs. Here's more information about the free icons for bloggers.

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VEGETABLE RECIPES from the ARCHIVES
~ more breakfast & brunch recipes ~
~ more recipes for egg main dishes ~
~ more spinach recipes ~

EASY SPINACH NESTS

Hands-on time: maybe 10 minutes?
Time to table: maybe 25 minutes?
Serves as many as needed

Per Serving

Olive oil
Chopped onion
Chopped garlic
Handful of fresh chopped spinach, stems removed if tough
Salt & pepper to taste
Cream or half & half, just enough to bind the spinach
1 egg
Seasoning (I used Lawry's)

Heat a non-stick skillet on MEDIUM HIGH. Add the olive oil til it shimmers. Add the onion and garlic and cook til just softened. Add the spinach, stir to coat with fat. Let cook, stirring often, til spinach softens. Season the spinach. With a spatula, arrange the spinach into a donut shape, with the center left open clear to the bottom of the skillet. Reduce heat to MEDIUM or MEDIUM LOW. Drop in an egg. While the egg cooks, drizzle a little cream over the spinach, use the tip of the skillet to press inward to compact a bit. Cover the skillet so the egg will cook evenly from both sides. When the egg is nearly cooked, sprinkle it with a seasoning salt or more salt and pepper. Gently slip the egg onto a plate for serving.

NUTRITION ESTIMATE
Per Serving: 158 Cal (78% from Fat, 10% from Protein, 12% from Carb); 4 g Protein; 14 g Tot Fat; 4 g Sat Fat; 8 g Mono Fat; 5 g Carb; 1 g Fiber; NetCarb4; 1 g Sugar; 66 mg Calcium; 1 mg Iron; 36 mg Sodium; 215 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 4 points

TODAY'S VEGETABLE RECIPE INSPIRATION
I started making eggs like this more than a year ago, after making the gorgeous shirred eggs.

KITCHEN NOTES
There was a time when I bought a bag of fresh baby spinach every week. I used it for everything, salads mostly but also cooking. But in recent months, I've realized that tender leaves of spinach are best left raw or in recipes where the leaves cook for just a minute. For longer cooking, heavier spinach leaves are better. They do need to be washed well (I'm training myself to do this as soon as they enter the kitchen), stems removed and chopped. Some time I intend to do a flavor comparison too, I suspect that cooked, the baby spinach has less flavor.
My skillet holds two nests quite easily but that's the limit.
When I made these for my dad one morning, I used less oil in the skillet and so the spinach actually formed a slight crust on the bottom: he loved this.

PRINT JUST A RECIPE! Now you can print a recipe without wasting ink and paper on the header and sidebar. Here's how.

NEVER MISS A RECIPE! For 'home delivery' of new recipes from A Veggie Venture, sign up here. Once you do, new recipes will be delivered, automatically, straight to your e-mail In Box.

---

Do you suffer from lachanophobia? Turn to A Veggie Venture and Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg for the best vegetable recipes online. Find a quick recipe for tonight's vegetable in the Alphabet of Vegetables or plan menus with vegetables in every course. If you're a dieter, turn to hundreds of zero-point, one- and two-point Weight Watchers recipes and many low carb recipes.
© Copyright 2008

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

One-Pot Pasta Recipe with Greens, Olives & Feta ♥

Today's vegetarian recipe: A one-pot pasta recipe. Cook the greens first, then cook the pasta in the same water. Toss with olives and feta. Devour! Weight Watchers 6 points.

Two problems with pasta recipes.

1) They take too long to get to the table. Pasta is supposed to be fast, right? -- zip, zip, done. But it takes forever to bring the water to a boil. SOLUTION: Use an electric kettle to boil the water. At the same time, heat up the cooking pot with just an inch or so of water. Together, this makes a big improvement, time-wise. If the idea appeals, I have a small electric kettle from Presto but there's an electric kettle style for every taste for anyone who's interested.

2) They take too many pots, some times three. THIS RECIPE's SOLUTION: Cook the greens and the pasta separately but in the same water then toss in the remaining ingredients. Aha - a one-pot pasta recipe.

I loved the simplicity of this pasta recipe, one developed for the April 2008 issue of Bon Appetit by Molly Stevens of All About Braising fame. (Is it just me or is Bon Appetit really ramping up their use of vegetables in recipes? Every issue, I find myself tagging more and more recipe possibilities for A Veggie Venture.)

NEXT TIME
The cooked pasta and greens are topped with a mix of parsley, lemon zest and minced raw -- very raw -- garlic. I found this superfluous so next time will skip the parsley entirely and just toss the zest and garlic into the hot pasta.
Mustard greens seemed like a good choice of greens. The idea was that their slight 'bite' would contrast well with the soft pasta, salty olives and tangy feta. Instead, the mustard greens melted into a big mass of messiness, hard to distribute throughout the pasta. Next time I'll use spinach leaves (not baby spinach, too tender to hold up) or broccoli rabe or kale.

NUTRITION NOTES
As always, I allowed only two ounces of pasta per person - while we might want to eat more, this is the sensible portion, despite the four ounces that recipes typically call for. To her credit, Molly Stevens allows only 2 - 2-1/2 ounces per serving.)
I also dropped the olive oil from 5 tablespoons to one, a big calorie saver. There's no knowing of course how good it might have been with more olive oil, but then again, when savoring this noodle by noodle, I wasn't thinking, "Gosh, this sure could use some more fat."
With Dreamfields pasta, this technically falls into low-carb territory.

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FREE ICONS for BLOGGERS Share your love of fresh produce, whether from the farmers market, your own garden or even a CSA farmbox. Four icons celebrate fresh local vegetables and fruits -- and my fellow bloggers are invited to use them on their own blogs. Here's more information about the free icons for bloggers.

---

VEGETABLE RECIPES from the ARCHIVES
~ more pasta recipes ~
~ more vegetarian suppers ~
~ more leafy green recipes ~

ONE-POT PASTA with GREENS, OLIVES & FETA

Hands-on time: 20 minutes
Time to table: 30 minutes
Serves 4

Salted water

1 pound leafy greens, preferably spinach (not baby spinach) or broccoli rabe or maybe kale, thick stems removed, cut into one-inch strips (makes about 10 cups gently packed)
8 ounces penne pasta (I used Dreamfields Pasta, the low-glycemic pasta so good for low-carb diets and diabetic regimens)
Salt & pepper to taste

Zest of a lemon
1 clove garlic, minced fine
1 tablespoon olive olive (reduced from 5 tablespoons)
1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives, chopped
3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled (about 1/2 cup)

Bring the water to a boil. Add the greens and cook until just tender, 1 - 6 minutes depending on the greens. With a slotted spoon, lift out the greens and let drain in a colander. Return the water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until done, stirring occasionally. Lift out the pasta into the colander, then drain the pot -- but save a couple of cups of liquid.

Return the pasta to the hot pot. Stir in the greens and olive oil. Season to taste. Toss in remaining ingredients plus enough of the cooking liquid to just moisten. Serve immediately.

NUTRITION ESTIMATE
Made with 8 ounces of pasta and 1 tablespoon olive oil: Per Serving: 312 Cal (48% from Fat, 23% from Protein, 28% from Carb); 12 g Protein; 11 g Tot Fat; 4 g Sat Fat; 5 g Mono Fat; 14 g Carb; 7 g Fiber; NetCarb7; 2 g Sugar; 177 mg Calcium; 2 mg Iron; 428 mg Sodium; 19 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 6 points

If made with 16 ounces past and 5 tablespoons olive oil: Per Serving: 624 Cal (57% from Fat, 19% from Protein, 24% from Carb); 19 g Protein; 25 g Tot Fat; 6 g Sat Fat; 15 g Mono Fat; 25 g Carb; 12 g Fiber; NetCarb13; 3 g Sugar; 177 mg Calcium; 2 mg Iron; 429 mg Sodium; 19 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 14 points

TODAY'S VEGETABLE RECIPE INSPIRATION
Bon Appetit, April 2008

PRINT JUST A RECIPE! Now you can print a recipe without wasting ink and paper on the header and sidebar. Here's how.

NEVER MISS A RECIPE! For 'home delivery' of new recipes from A Veggie Venture, sign up here. Once you do, new recipes will be delivered, automatically, straight to your e-mail In Box.

---

Do you suffer from lachanophobia? Turn to A Veggie Venture and Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg for the best vegetable recipes online. Find a quick recipe for tonight's vegetable in the Alphabet of Vegetables or plan menus with vegetables in every course. If you're a dieter, turn to hundreds of zero-point, one- and two-point Weight Watchers recipes and many low carb recipes.
© Copyright 2008

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Kitchen Parade Extra: Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Recipe

Today's recipe at KitchenParade.com: My recipe for strawberry rhubarb cobbler, one of spring's classic dessert recipes, topped with a buttery cornmeal crumb.

Thank goodness for rhubarb recipes. Otherwise A Veggie Venture might become altogether too healthful, bereft of sweets and desserts. Once the rhubarb is ready for harvesting and starts to show up in the grocery stores, who can resist a thick slice of rhubarb pie, the perfect balance of rhubarb-sour and sugar-sweet? But for simplicity, an easy cobbler recipe is the ticket, whether a 'plain' rhubarb cobbler or today's recipe, rhubarb and strawberry cobbler.

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BUSTED Many thanks to Maggie, a reader who makes her home in New York City on the top floor apartment of a building originally constructed in 1839 as a one-family house. Maggie's apartment runs due north to due south so the northern windows get no direct sun and southern windows and skylights get so much sun that anything short of a cactus would be fried. After reading Tuesday's post about how to grow fresh herbs in pots, Maggie wrote -- ever so poignantly -- to remind me that not all homes have the space, light and open air to grow fresh herbs, even ones with wonderful front stoops perfect for watching the world pass by. She's thinking about investing in an aerogarden, something I wrote about on BlogHer and has the added benefit of year-round fresh herbs.

Maggie, thank you for your letter and the Aerogarden suggestion. Readers, keep those cards and letters and comments coming!

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NEVER MISS A KITCHEN PARADE RECIPE! Who's been missing Kitchen Parade recipes? You know, like that recipe for Lime Chicken so perfect for a weeknight supper? Or light, bright and quick Lemon Asparagus Pasta that so celebrates the best spring asparagus? If you were accustomed to learning about new Kitchen Parade recipes via announcements here on A Veggie Venture, well, those announcements are a thing of the past, thanks to the two sites attracting increasingly different readers. Good news: Kitchen Parade is easily available too, just sign up for Kitchen Parade via e-mail or Kitchen Parade via RSS. Many thanks!

WHY DOESN'T THIS POST ACCEPT COMMENTS? Because I hope that you'll click through to today's column or Tuesday's herb post to comment there!

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Do you suffer from lachanophobia? Turn to A Veggie Venture and Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg for the best vegetable recipes online. Find a quick recipe for tonight's vegetable in the Alphabet of Vegetables or plan menus with vegetables in every course. If you're a dieter, turn to hundreds of zero-point, one- and two-point Weight Watchers recipes and many low carb recipes.
© Copyright 2008

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Never Buy Fresh Herbs Again ♥ How to Grow Fresh Herbs at Home in Pots

Pantry with a Purpose: How to grow a few favorite fresh herbs at home. Recipes for easy, delicious and economical dishes using fresh herbs from food bloggers.

Food prices are skyrocketing with no end in sight. This is the second post tackling the idea of saving money on groceries by – stay with me a minute, it's not entirely intuitive – by cooking more. The idea, you see, is to stop paying crazy-high prices for commercial products, by making our own or in this case, growing our own.

Now I know that fresh herbs are a luxury in many households, it's dried or nothing. But cooking at home is as much about eating better as eating less expensively. Fresh herbs add life to salads, vegetables, salad dressings, meat dishes, even desserts and drinks.

In my grocery, small (plastic) packets of fresh herbs are now $3 for a small bunch. Trader Joe's sells fresh herbs for $2 but to my taste, they're not worth a nickel. Either way, buying just one packet a week adds up to $100 - $150 a year. Instead, I spend maybe $20 on plants, then use them all summer long. So here's my challenge, will you join me? Never Buy Fresh Herbs Again!

HOW to GROW HERBS in POTS
HOW to GROW HERBS in the GROUND
HOW to GROW HERBS in APARTMENTS
HERB-HAPPY RECIPES from MY FELLOW FOOD BLOGGERS

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MORE IDEAS for SAVING MONEY on GROCERIES
~ Never Buy Salad Dressing Again ~
~ How to Save Money on Groceries ~

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HOW to GROW HERBS in POTS

Pots Choose pots at least twelve inches in diameter but large pots work really well. Pots smaller than twelve inches simply cannot hold enough moisture on hot summer days. Terra cotta pots look great but are heavy, expensive and fragile. I really like the foam pots which look like terra cotta but are light, relatively inexpensive and last at least a decade (maybe longer, I just know that three of mine are that old). A mix of pot styles – color, height, diameter, shape, material – is less "matchy-matchy" and looks quite natural and beautiful.

Location Find a spot that gets direct sun for at least six hours a day and is open to rainfall. Late-day sun is hard on plants so if there's a choice, pick a spot that's bright in the morning but shaded in late afternoon.

Drainage The pot may already have drainage holes in the bottom. If not, it's simple enough to drill a few holes in the bottom. And do make sure to use pots with drainage holes – otherwise the plants may actually 'drown', since their roots could be in water. In addition, I like to place an inch or so of small rocks in the bottom of the pots to help drainage. During the spring, it's easy to buy bags of small stones at the garden store. During the year, for houseplants say, I use aquarium gravel.

Soil For extra-large pots, fill the bottom third or half of the pot with styrofoam popcorn or even used wine corks. The pot will need less soil and be quite a bit lighter, making it easier to move the pot or at least turn it occasionally. Then fill with soil. If you're doing just a couple of pots, buy a pre-mixed soil called 'potting mix' which will be loose and easy to work. For more soil, it's easy to make your own potting mix but I've become addicted to the performance of the Miracle Grow potting mix. It's expensive but I pay for the convenience and performance.

Time-Release Fertilizer Some potting soils already include a time-release fertizer. Otherwise, sprinkle the top layer with a fertilizer such as Osmocote (a real miracle product). Work it into the top couple of inches of soil.

Planting from Seed To plant from seed, you need to start very early in the season. Honestly, I've had zero luck planting from seed though others of course do.

Container Plants Instead, I buy small containers of herbs for $2 - $3 each. Walmart and the large hardware stores with gardening centers have good selection with the most reasonable prices. Most herbs are "annuals", this means that they'll last just one season. A few are "perennials" and will return year after year.

My Favorite Herbs for Pots My own tact is to grow a few favorite herbs, ones to use all summer in small quantities. So I usually buy one plant each of chive, rosemary, Greek oregano, dill, lavender, tarragon and thyme plus three basil plants. I also grow parsley and cilantro but just enough for snipping for salads and garnishing since I use them in such quantity and they are inexpensive in large bunches at the grocery store.

Plants Per Pot? Plan for one plant in a twelve-inch pot, up to three plants in a larger pot.

Finally, Planting! As soon as the frost date has passed (here's a list that shows frost dates by state, it shows April 30 as the last frost for St. Louis but the common wisdom is that it's really Mother's Day weekend), gently remove the plant from its container. Sometimes you can slip the base of the plant between the fingers of one hand to contain the soil, then turn it over. Some times you need to tug gently to remove the plant from the container. Dip the plant into water, using your hand to contain the soil. Crack open the bottom of the dirt, this lets the roots descend into the pot's soil more easily. Place the plant in the potting mix, fill in the sides with soil but don't mound the dirt around the plant's stem. Once all the plants are in, soak the pot with water.

Adding Flowers Fresh herbs are beautiful but they are "mostly green" so might not provide color. So some times, I'll tuck a pansy or a hanging flowering plant along the side.

TLC - Tender Lovin' Care In hot climates, pots will need to be watered every day unless it rains. I soak my pots every single morning, filling them until the water begins to drain out the holes in the bottom. Every three or four weeks, it also pays to refresh the fertilizer.

Buds & Flowers Aha! This is a trick! The 'flowers' on basil, dill and other plants may be beautiful but if we really want fresh herbs, we need to nip these off as soon as they appear. That said, I love the flowers of garlic chive so much that I keep an entire pot of garlic chive, just for the greens and flowers!

Harvesting It's great fun to step outside with scissors to gather a few herbs. Just cut off what you need. At the end of the season, you may want to harvest all the herbs for preserving for the winter. I love this technique, DIY Dried Herbs (How to Dry Fresh Herbs in the Microwave).

Winter Interest For the winter, woody plants like rosemary and lavendar, for example, die off but their dried versions provide great architectural interest throughout the winter. The soft-leaved plants like basil will just disintegrate after the first frost.

For Next Season Each year, it's important to amend the soil in pots by at least half, some gardeners even recommend replacing the soil entirely. While amending the soil with new potting mix, also work out roots and bulbs that will be in last year's soil.

HOW to GROW HERBS in the GROUND

Space This post isn't really intended for 'real gardeners', people who feed their families by tilling the soil. But the good news for the rest of us is that it doesn't take a 'garden' to grow herbs, just a small sunny corner will do. I switched from pots to a side garden two years ago, testing herbs in dense clay-like soil just to see what would happen. They did great! This year I've built up the soil so that it's workable and I'm betting that this year, the herbs will truly thrive. If you've got a place that will work for herbs, it's cheaper and easier to maintain plants in soil than in pots -- no pots to buy, less watering. Otherwise, the principles are the same.

HOW to GROW HERBS in APARTMENTS

UPDATE Many thanks to Maggie, a reader who makes her home in New York City on the top floor apartment of a building originally constructed in 1839 as a one-family house. Maggie's apartment runs due north to due south so the northern windows get no direct sun and southern windows and skylights get so much sun that anything short of a cactus would be fried. After reading this post, Maggie wrote -- ever so poignantly -- to remind me that not all homes have the space, light and open air to grow fresh herbs, even ones with wonderful front stoops perfect for watching the world pass by. She's thinking about investing in an aerogarden, something I wrote about on BlogHer and has the added benefit of year-round fresh herbs. Maggie, thank you for your letter and the Aerogarden suggestion. Readers, keep those cards and letters and comments coming!

HERB-HAPPY RECIPES: RECIPES using FRESH HERBS

Note to RSS and e-mail readers: the Del.icio.us technology used to collect these herb recipes only displays the recipe lists online. Want to see the herb recipes? Click through to Never Buy Fresh Herbs Again.

Basil Recipes
A plant or two will be plenty for salad for the summer. But to make pesto, you'll need to buy big bunches of basil - or grow a lot!

Rosemary Recipes

Tarragon Recipes

Chives Recipes
Worried about your 'green thumb'? Then start with chives which are completely forgiving and so useful.

Fresh Mint Recipes
There are many varieties of mint. In 2008, I'm adding spearmint to the collection.

Preserving Fresh Herbs

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Do you suffer from lachanophobia? Turn to A Veggie Venture and Veggie Evangelist Alanna Kellogg for the best vegetable recipes online. Find a quick recipe for tonight's vegetable in the Alphabet of Vegetables or plan menus with vegetables in every course. If you're a dieter, turn to hundreds of zero-point, one- and two-point Weight Watchers recipes and many low carb recipes.
© Copyright 2008

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Party Asparagus with Aioli ♥ Two Classic Recipes

Today's recipes: How to cook and shock fresh asparagus to retain the bright green color and enhance the natural asparagus flavor for serving chilled. How to make aioli, the classic sauce. Great for parties, buffets, composed salads.

~recipe & photo updated 2011, republished 2013~
~more recently updated recipes~

First the asparagus. At Easter, my favorite dish at a magnificent brunch prepared by a former White House chef and recent Silver Toque winner was, um, yes, the asparagus. Aiii it was good – arrayed on huge platters, stems peeled halfway to the tips and perfectly salted. At first, I thought there might have been garlic in the cooking water. The chef sniffed at that idea so hmm, perhaps not. At home, it took three tries and three pounds of asparagus to get the salt balanced properly. Yes, I concede, dozens of spears were sacrificed to get the salt right. (2011 Update: Chef Chambrin is the source of the recipe for Raspberry Bliss, my first column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch!)

SALT It's another ingredient with (in my mind) an undeserved bad reputation. Because salt is "bad" for us, we cook rice and pasta and eggs and – heavens, vegetables – with minimal salt and even – horrors – without salt. Our bodies require salt. My solution, my rationalization? If we'd all just nix prepared and commercial food – and their high, high proportions of sodium – then it seems to me, we can let loose with salt for food cooked at home. I'm not a nutritionist so please don't violate a doctor's order. But I'd love to know – is salt a good thing or a bad thing in your world? How much salt would you use to cook a pound of asparagus?
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