Posts tagged ‘herbs’

Dec 1

Spreenkle #7

Keeping our herbs fresh longer.

It’s been a long time since we had a little trivia from in and around spree’s kitchen. So here’s one for you (and there’s a stack of others in the wings.)

Basil hates the cold. There’s no softening the truth of it. Turns all black and soon slimy if put in the vegetable bin of the refrigerator. If it can’t be in the sun, basil likes being out on your counter, in the warmth of your kitchen. Give the stems a fresh cut, put them in a glass of tepid water, cover them with a plastic bag or cloche and they’ll last for days and days. They may be so happy they’ll put down roots.

If you won’t be able to use your basil up before it starts to wither, you can puree it with olive oil, spoon into ice-cube trays and freeze. Once frozen, spill them into a zipping freezer bag where they’ll be happy for ages.

On the other hand, Cilantro (aka fresh coriander) doesn’t seem to mind the cold of the fridge. But it does still prefer its stems in water. Give the stems a fresh trim, place them in a glass of water, cover them loosely with a plastic bag and place on a shelf in your fridge. They’ll be happy for a good week. (Possibly more.) Parsley (when asked) prefers the same treatment as cilantro. If you can’t decide what to do with all that parsley within the week – try turning it into salsa verde! So easy to make, and it’ll freshen up just about anything you drizzle it on. Sage will be happy in a refrigerated & covered glass of water too. Best to change their water every couple days.

Oct 28

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buttermilk biscuits – with a difference

If you’ve been following along, you may recall that one damp gray day it became necessary for me to bring indoors bushels of lemon verbena, listing badly in the rain. You may remember too that – as a happy consequence of this most deliciously fragrant herb having come indoors – our house now smelled like a commercial for the cleanest house on the block (which, no doubt, it wasn’t unless all my neighbors were having particularly messy days.) Anyway, I digress.

That day rather than clean the house, I opted instead to churn up some lemon verbena ice-cream, an impressively easy choice to make. I also dried a pint-jar full and with the rest, I made a lemon verbena sugar to store in the freezer for inspirations that might come later. I had plenty of this citrusy sugar to share and so I did.

Mike, our wonderful son-in-law and certainly one of the biggest foodies in the family – (and that’s not without considerable competition) – decided to incorporate some in his biscuits. What a great idea! And so the next time I made biscuits, I did the same. And they were wonderful! And then, not content to leave it at that, I had to try a different addition from the herb garden. And we loved those too, and so I share: buttermilk biscuits – with fresh sage and orange zest. There will be a footnote on the lemon verbena variety but, because you can’t find that herb in your grocery store and will instead have to wait until next year when you plant your own, those biscuits won’t be the headliner here. (Don’t worry, I won’t let you forget to plan for it next summer.)

~ ~ ~

Did you know there was such a thing as biscuit flour? I didn’t. It’s simply a flour milled from 100% soft winter wheat. But you can approximate it using equal parts of all-purpose flour and the lighter, softer cake or pastry flour. If you have cake flour by all means use it. If you don’t, not to worry. Just use the all-purpose flour but know that your biscuits won’t be quite as flaky and light as they might otherwise be.

To top these you may want to try incorporating a drizzle of honey and a bit of orange zest into some softened butter — allow the whole of it to melt down the sides and be caught by your tongue, just in the nick of time!

Buttermilk Biscuits with Fresh Sage & Orange Zest

1½ cups all-purpose flour
1½ cups cake or white pastry flour
4 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1¼ teaspoons salt
¼teaspoon baking soda
½ cup plus 2 Tablespoons cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup cold buttermilk
3 large sage leaves, roughly chopped
the zest of one large orange

Preheat the oven to 425°F. If you have a cast-iron skillet, put it in the oven to bring it to the same temperature. If you don’t have one, use a cooking sheet instead. (The case for biscuits made in a cast-iron skillet is that the bottoms & tops will be lightly browned and crispy, but the sides, because they’re packed closely together, will be soft and tender.)

Jun 23

3 Comments

Roasted Whole Chicken on the Grill

This dinner all started with kumquats – even though, in the end, it had absolutely nothing to do with kumquats. Now that I think longer about it, this dinner actually started with going out to lunch and trying to avoid a parking ticket.

Maybe it’s just me…but sometimes I like to figure out exactly how I came to be where I am from where I’d just been. It’s often an odd, circuitous path to trace – kind of like that “six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon” thing, if you know what I mean. Have you ever taken a long road trip with someone and after some lively conversation, there’s a period of prolonged but comfortable silence? You think what you’re doing is watching the road or taking in all this amazing scenery, when actually, for some mysterious span of time, you’ve not been where you are at all, and suddenly out of your mouth comes something completely random and seemingly related to nothing. Do you ever then try to figure out (or even explain) how you came to be thinking that particular disjointed nonsensical thought? Well, this night’s dinner happened something like that.

Kumquats - having nothing to do with dinner

My husband and I have kind of a “custom” of going out to lunch on Saturdays. We’ll run a few errands and then pass the ball back and forth until one of us finally makes up our mind about where we’d like to eat, and then we sit across from one another talking about the week, news, politics…or sometimes something even more scintillating (if you can imagine!) We love our Saturdays together. Last week, we were following our usual practice and decided on a great little spot for lunch. We started to park in the lot across from the restaurant but realized it was designated for patrons of a grocery store. We parked there anyway – but felt quite legal about it because we’d just drop into the market first, and then walk across the street for lunch. We had no real reason to be grocery shopping, other than ticket avoidance, but there we were.

The produce aisles always seduce me first, but for my husband, it’s the wine section. So we went our separate ways to meet up later. Weren’t kumquats all done for the season? I thought so, and had said my sad goodbyes – but no! There they were, and they were huge! – well, the biggest I’d ever seen. I was downright delighted to see them and filled a small bag. My heart soon returned to its normal rhythm, but a little further down the aisle, the cutest little potatoes fanned out, in reds and yellows and purples! And they were smaller than the kumquats! Who ever heard of such a thing? I hadn’t, so I got handfuls of potatoes, simply because they were smaller than kumquats. And then, there was asparagus – now that’s gorgeous! That’ll be so good with those potatoes! I’ll do them together, with lemon and salt on the grill! Ah yes, the grill. Hmmm, I’ve never tried roasting a whole chicken on the grill before. I wonder if I can do that successfully? I think I’m just going to need to find that out! And that is how I came to be here:

(You are so incredibly patient with me! Are you like this with everyone?)

Roasted Whole Chicken on the Grill

What I love about roasting a whole chicken: It’s far less expensive than buying the individual parts. It’s so straightforward and simple and after the first little bit, largely hands-off. It can be done in so many different and delicious ways…influences of French, Moroccan, Mediterranean, Spanish. Stuffed or not. Surrounded by vegetables of all different types. Sauce or not. You can cook two at once with almost no additional labor. There’s (almost) always leftovers to turn into another meal. Then there’s the remnants that become a great stock for soups. And my husband loves it. So what’s not to like?

Cooking something on the grill for more than an hour at 400°F+ can only be done successfully using an indirect method. (In other words no coals or gas flames directly beneath the chicken.) So if you know how to cook on your grill using an indirect method, this will be easy! (If you don’t know how, just check the instructions from your grill’s manufacturer, or on line.)