If you were to grow your own herbs/ spices at home what kind would you grow?!
If you were to grow your own herbs/ spices at home what kind would you grow?
Can you tell me what they taste like
Are they best dried or fresh?
If dried should you keep them whole or crush or ground?
What is the best way to store them?
Answers:
I grow thyme, oregano,tarragon, rosemary and chives that are all perennial plants - they come back every year, so they are incredibly low-maintenance!
Then each year I plant green basil, purple basil, cilantro, and parsley....at the end of the season, I transplant these to pots and bring them inside for the winter...usually lasts for a few months..gets me through much of the cold seasons here.
These are all the herbs that I cook with most often.
I prefer fresh herbs much more over dried, although I do dry my own, so I have some on hand at all times!
To dry, I just take a good bunch, rubberband the stems, and hang them upside down to dry for a week or so. Then I scrape the leaves off the stem and store them in containers - I like to keep the leaves whole, as opposed to crushing them.
I also keep a few "herb cubes" in my freezer..pack clean fresh herbs into ice cube trays, top with water, and freeze. Then pop em out and throw into a marked freezer bag...that way I can just toss the herbs into soups and stuff when I want to.
I hope this all helps!
I grow spearmint, pepper mint, rosemary, thyme and sage. I use tons of rosemary. It's my favorite. I use everything fresh. I don't store it, I just go out side and pick as much as I need. I use the rosemary in pasta sauce and chili, anything tomato based.
I grow mint, sage, thyme and basil in patio boxes. I only use them fresh because they lose a bit when they are dried (and thats why I am growing them myself!).
If you must have dried, definitely keep them whole and grind them only right before you use them. grinding them early loses their flavor.
you need to store any of those items in small air tight containers.
There are some great herbs for cooking that I use: mint, cilantro, rosemary, thyme, parsely and more, and they can all be grown at home, and I currently grow all of them. I used to work at a 4 star restaurant as a chef, and surprisingly enough, what people don't realize, is that restaurants use herbs to garnish them for appearance and taste, and mint is one of the most popular herbs to use. Herbs are extemely easy to grow, especially mint which spreads like a weed, and ANY herb you use in cooking is always going to taste better fresh. Actually, now that I think about it, everything tastes better fresh!
Hope This Helped,
Jake
the best herbs to grow are the ones that you are going to use and like, unfortunately growing them is hard because some need lots of water, others not so much and the bugs love some things like basil. I love basil but so do the snails! Fresh is usually always best if you can, but dried works well and you can use less as the flavour is concentrated. Dried herbs keep in a cool dry place, moisture in them is bad! As for whole/ground/or crushed depends on what your recipes call for, but think of this you can always gring, or crush a whole think in a motor and pessle, but you can't ungrind. Fresh herbs once out of the ground, will keep in water in the fridge a couple of days.
I wish i could grow pasley, oregano, rosmary, basil, chives, corriander(celantro) but it wasn't meant to be :o(
Parsley, is good fresh, and easy to dry..
Same goes for mint, sage, thyme, lemon thyme, oregano, rosemary, tarragon, .........
Celantro and basil are my fav's but kind of hard to grow with our short summer months....
You can get a book on herbs and read up......You'll also get to know their medicinal uses, too! It's not all about the flavor you know!!!
The basic spices thyme, basil, parley, cilantro, oregano, mint rosemary, i think that all a better fresh but it is more convient to get them dried. The more grounded or cut they are the more flavor they give off so it all depends if you get fresh herbs you can keep them in the house not to much heat and water them if you want to know how they taste it is best to taste them yourself so that you can decide which one you like you can go to the store and by the really small bottles and just go through and taste them and see which one you prefer but start of with the dried spices and go from there I like basil and cilantro the best.