More ways to use fresh herbs

Many recipes call for fresh herbs which do add wonderful flavors to the foods we cook, but do you ever find that you bought a "bunch" or a package of some fresh herb when you only needed a small amount?  Do you hold on to it with the idea in mind that you will use it somewhere else, but then you don't know what to do with it? 

Here are a couple of very quick and easy ways to enjoy the fresh herbs weeks or even months later!

Compound Butter!

Compound butters can be made at home and you probably have all the ingredients on hand!  You simply whip together real unsalted butter with herbs, spices or aromatic liquids using a stand mixer or hand held mixer.  Then form it into a cylinder shape, wrap in plastic wrap or parchment paper, and chill until it is firm enough to be sliced. These butters can be melted on top of meats and vegetables, used as a spread or used to finish various sauces. You can also store this well wrapped in the freezer for a few months.

Try fresh garlic, parsley, butter and salt for your own garlic spread.   You can make it more spreadable (and delicious) by incorporating some olive oil or cream cheese!

Pesto!

Always a classic but even more delicious when you make it at home!  I blogged a How-to on making pesto in late September.  Again, incredibly more delicious than store bought,  and it can be stored for months in the freezer.

Seasoned Salt!

Salt is a natural preservative!  It's been the way to preserve fish and meats before the invention of the refrigerator!  It's also great to make your own seasoned salt using fresh herbs, garlic, citrus zest, etc.  All you need beyond the ingredients is a good knife and some time to work these ingredients together! 

Use on meats, vegetables, your breakfast cereal.  Okay, maybe not that last one....

The seasoned salts you buy in the store can be made right at home, and as with anything else that is homemade, it will be even more delicious!  Try it and see for yourself!

Using and Preserving Fresh Herbs

I just got home from the store with some fresh parsley.  The store that I buy mine at usually has a sprayer that keeps the parsley pretty wet.  I select a bunch and put it in a plastic bag so that it doesn't make other things that I am buying also get wet.


This is what my parsley looks like when I get home from the store.  Notice how wet it is?

Unwrap your herbs if they are wet. 

Notice how some of the leaves (near the stems) are already bruised and crushed? 

Also the way it is wrapped with the leaves and stems tied together is a problem.  You know that those leaves are going to decay quickly, especially if you leave your bundle of parsley wrapped up and in the plastic bag. 

Very mixed and wet parsley.

I think I have thrown out parsley more times that I would like to count because of leaving it wrapped the way I brought it home from the store.  It really is a turn off when it smells rotten and is slimy to handle.

You really need to separate the individual stems of parsley when you first bring it home from the store. 

 Spread your parsley out on towels so that you can pull out the leaves that will rot and ruin the rest of the bunch.  Sort the stems by length if you want to put them into glasses or vases with water and you can keep them right on your countertop.

Short stems in smaller vase, Longer stems in tall glass. 

When I clean up the parsley like this, I will actually have fresh parsley on hand for at least a week.  Remember to change the water though, just like with fresh flowers.

You can use parsley in many ways:  freshly minced as a garnish, stems and all in a pasta sauce, or before they wilt you can throw them into the freezer and add to your soup/stock.  

Dry the parsley well and store in an airtight container. 

The very wet stems and leaves put into the freezer for later.

If you hate to throw out all those stems and leaves that were separated, just put them into the freezer and use later.  Using this method I will not waste any of the fresh herbs that I am paying top dollar for this winter.

Here's another way to preserve fresh herbs for even longer:

Make Herb-Garlic Salt.

 You can easily make your fresh herbs into a seasoned salt for meat, vegetables, or a delicious compound butter.

First, remove the stems from the leaf.  Finely chop with fresh garlic cloves and Kosher salt. 

Chop it all together: herb, salt and garlic.

Keep chopping.  You want this finely minced.

Add more salt and keep chopping.

Mix this into butter and it will keep for months in the freezer.  Put on vegetables, rice, pasta, whole grains, potatoes, or use as a spread on bread. 

When it is finely chopped, it is ready to use! 

This is one of the tricks you can use at home to make your fresh herbs go farther--especially at this time of year when many of us can't grown them. 

And feel free to pass it on....

Find more information at my website:  www.now-youre-cooking.com

Got Bananas, Take Two

I was cleaning up my blogs the other day, deleting the ones I started and never finished, and with just one click I accidentally deleted the banana blog that I had just written!  Dang, why isn't there a do-over button on this site?!

So here is my re-write:
The other morning my husband looked at our banana situation (he eats a banana every morning) and said "last night these were green and today they are turning brown".  I struggle with having some ready-to-eat bananas for his daily fix, and buying bananas that are not-ready-to-eat but will soon be ready-to-eat. 

Ripe or over-ripe?

I oftentimes would take overripe bananas and turn them into some delicious baked good, like my sister Mary Lou's Banana Bread.  Since so many people now avoid baked goods, that isn't always a viable solution. 

Of course you can freeze the bananas, but I am disgusted with the liquid-like mess they become.  And in the interest of full disclosure I will admit to finding blackened bananas in my freezer that were beyond use.  I think I could find that in the freezers of many well intentioned cooks!

 

However, if you want to save your bananas in the freezer, who am I to stop you?  I find unpeeled frozen bananas particularly unappealing, so be sure to peel them before freezing.  

Here is my newest discovery for the overripe banana dilemma.  Peel your bananas and cut them into chunks.

Put the chunks onto a flat pan or plate and freeze them for several hours or overnight. 

When you remove these from the freezer you can put them all together in one container, such as a plastic bag, and they will remain separate from one another so that you can take out as many pieces as you want.  Because they are cut up they will also thaw faster, but we love to use them frozen.

Here are some suggestions:

If you have a high speed blender, put several chunks of banana in and turn on as high as it goes for a couple of minutes, until smooth.  Voila!  Banana ice Cream!  Really, you do not need to add anything else, but chocolate sauce and peanut butter might be nice.

Make a Banana Split, smoothie style.  Add strawberries (fresh, frozen, jam), pineapple, chocolate sauce and yogurt or ice cream.  Turn on the blender and mix until smooth and ready to spoon or drink, depending upon the thickness you are after.  You can add milk if it's too thick.

Throw a few chunks into any fruit smoothie.  Bananas make them taste better!

Pull out one or two chunks and eat as is--frozen.  Or dip into the peanut butter and coat with some mini chocolate chips.  This is a great little snack but keep it a secret unless you have a LOT of frozen bananas.  They will disappear in no time!

Try these ideas out! Let me know what you come up with!