How to dry herbs

I've got tons of fresh parsley growing in the garden that I just can't keep up with.  The kids are getting pretty fed up as well, after all, who wouldn't want their peanut butter and jelly sandwich garnished with a little sprig of parsley?   I listened to a Gardenfork podcast episode in which they demonstrated how to dry your own herbs.

As I was making Sunday Sauce today while watching the Daytona 500, I brought in some of the parsley to add to the meatballs.  Having a bunch left over, I decide to give the drying process a try.   This works well with basil and oregano as well.

After washing the leaves, cut or rip them from the stems and spread out on a piece of wax paper.  Put them into the microwave and cook on high for 50 seconds.  Open the door and give them a little stir and then microwave a second time for 40 seconds.   You might have to experiment with the times depending on your microwave.  You may hear some popping or crackling while they cook, but that's normal.  At this point, all of the moisture in the leaves should be gone and the leaves will be nice and brittle. You can crush them in a mortar and pestle, or just rub them in your hand to get the desired texture. 

As you can see in the pictures, the herbs maintain their original color.

Fresh parsley after drying and crushing

Quite a contrast from the store-bought

This process also works well with fresh bay leaves.   Since I cook alot of Italian food, I go through  a bit of bay.  I came across a bay laurel plant at the local nursery last fall and snatched it up. 

Bay leaves.  The fresh ones are on top

  The whole process took 10 minutes at best.  Easy stuff.

Raptors

Given the rodent problems I experience each year, I've decided to switch to the big guns.

Sager Hawk

Goshawk

Eagle owl

Vulture

Actually, a friend's neighbor is an exotic birds handler/trainer and is in the movie business.  He has numerous trained raptors at his home and he was kind enough to show us his beautiful birds.  The vulture, Dexter, is the third largest flying bird in the world, and has an 8 foot wingspan!  He's been in several movies including the last Indiana Jones release.

Now if I can only get them to swing by the house,,,

Random thought

Should I be embarrassed that I woke up this morning and actually got excited about heading out to my local nursery to listen to an hour-long lecture on Organic Vegetable Gardening?  Geek that I am, I did just that.  The representative from EB Stone organics put on an informative presentation complete with coupons for fertilizers at a substantial savings.  I stocked up for the upcoming season and it was nice to revisit some of the concepts I've been through before, but somehow forgot to employ along the way.

Funny, I couldn't get the kids to tag along.

2010 Results

I meant to put up the results of the last year when the last plant came out of the ground,  but since that was over a month ago I guess it's better late than never.  I've been trying to come up with a good excuse as to why I haven't posted for a few weeks, but alas, I have none.     Much has happened since my last entry - Christmas and the New Year, a freak snowstorm in Southern California, and the seed catalog porn has been devoured and filed away.

So here's what worked for me last year:

TOMATOES
SunSugar - Excellent
Paul Robeson - Excellent
Virginia Sweets - Awful, no fruit
Rutgers - Small, didn't care for the taste
Early Wonder - Small, early but nothing to get excited about
La Roma - Poor, small fruit/ scrawny plant
Amish Paste - Great taste, large fruit, light production
Celebrity - Great, as always
Zapotec Pleated - Very late season, but the taste was great as well as the production

PEPPERS
Jalapeno, Carmen, Lipstick and Relleno all did excellent.  Very productive and the fruit tasted great.

The zucchini did well as usual.  The cucumbers sucked - again.  I swear the plant grows great, but I can't keep those damn aphids away.  Whatever fruit formed was bitter as well. This was the first year with the new drip irrigation system and I was very pleased with how it all worked out.

Here's what the winter crop looks like now:

Cabbage

Cabbage and Cauliflower

Swiss Chard

Romaine lettuce and Garlic

Last tomato/Winter garden

Another Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone, and here's hoping everyone had as great a time as we did spent with family and friends.  Lots to be thankful for, indeed.   Despite the bruises and pulled hamstrings from the flag-football game with the kids earlier in the day, I still managed to drag my knife through the turkey and the rest of the trimmings.

There's a turkey carcass underneath

As long as we're talking turkey, here's a photo of the turkey stock brewin' away on the stove after the last of the guests have left.  It's become something I look forward to making each year,  even though turkey soup isn't high on my list of favorites.   This year I made it with fresh thyme, rosemary and parsley (all from the garden)  in addition to the usual odori that go into the pot.  The parsley looks great this time of year.

Look at that knife blurr - mad knife skills!

I've got the winter crop all set now that the weather has turned cold.  My apologies to my friends up north and back east, but we've been experiencing some rather brisk weather in LA, and when I say brisk, I mean it's been in the low 30's at night.  Apparently the result of some Alaskan winds caught up in the jet stream, this cold weather is teasing us with the promise of a third season (winter) that we never seem to experience.  The cabbage seems to be enjoying it.

Cabbage

I also put in some Brussel Sprouts (never grew them before) and cauliflower.  I dug in some onion and garlic bulbs that I hope will be ready before the summer garden goes in.  I'm growing seedlings of Swiss Chard again, along with Romaine and other varieties of lettuce.  Let's see if I can coax the carrot seedlings to sprout as well.

Swiss Chard, Romaine, Head Lettuce

On a sad note, I picked the last tomato of the season.  You guessed it, Celebrity.  I'm actually thrilled that I was able to harvest a tomato after Thanksgiving!  Ever the one to share, this one was offered up on the the altar of my cutting board and added to a pot of Chili I made for the Notre Dame - USC game (ND came through after eight consecutive losses to those Trojans).  Way to go Irish!  I'm sure my November tomato made all the difference.

The last tomato of the season

Garden Sentinels

The dogs finally make an appearance after all these months.  Here they are standing watch over the earthbox, which is still doing quite well with basil and parsley.   Don't let their tough looks fool you - trust me, the only thing standing between them and the burglar is a drool-soaked chew bone  presented at the foot of the thief, followed by a submissive offering of the soft underbelly in hopes for a good scratch. 

The summer crop has been removed from the main garden despite some hanging fruit  for which I don't have the patience to wait to ripen in the cooling weather.   I roasted the Chile Relleno peppers,  which have been seeded and stored in the freezer for future use.   The Jalapenos finished well and I'm bummed I didn't have the time to make pepper jelly this year.   I'll put the last of the tomatoes in a bag to ripen and keep my fingers crossed.

I'm into bonus time with the basil, which looks great this far into the season.  The Sunday sauce comes out so much better with fresh basil and oregano.   I put four cabbage plants into the ground a couple of weeks ago, along with a direct seeding of Swiss Chard and Spinach.  The seedlings emerged a week later only to be cut down by slugs or some other bandit.  I'll see if I can get my hands on some 6 pack seedlings at the local nursery.

Smokin' Baby-Backs

Wow,  it's been over a month since my last entry and we have some catching up to do.  I removed the last of the summer plants this last weekend and planted some cool-season cabbage, spinach and swiss chard.  More on that later, but I wanted to post some pics of a recent rib session before the weather cooled off for good.  Hickory-smoked Baby-Back ribs!

I set up the Weber for indirect grilling and soaked some large chunks of hickory in water for a few hours. After removing the silver skin membrane, I let the ribs marinate with the dry rub for a couple of hours.

Next, into the rack over a drip pan, and add the hickory.  As the ribs cook, I keep the mop handy.

When the meat starts to pull away from the bone, it's time.

Is summer really over?