Harvesting Herbs

I harvested a cup each of parsley, basil, and cilantro, and blended it up with oils, salt and pepper, and dried herbs to make a delicious herb rub..  I use the recipe from George Stella's book Eating Stella Style.  I doubled the recipe and divided it into 4 small plastic containers, labeled them, and put them in the freezer. 

The herb rub is delicious, especially on chicken.  I like to put chicken thighs in the slow cooker, spread the herb rub on top, cook on high for about 4 hours.  I'll put the rest of the rub on some peppers and onions and broil them for a few minutes right before serving.  Add a little whole wheat cous cous, some yogurt, hummus, and/or chutney, and it becomes a delicious and very easy meal that even my picky children enjoy.  

I change the herb rub up, depending on what I have available.  The original recipe calls for parsley, cilantro, and basil, which is a delicious combination.  However, when I don't have those herbs available, I have successfully substituted arugula, spinach, oregano, sage, rosemary, and thyme, in various amounts.  It always turns out well. 

It's hard to remember to harvest herbs in time and to remember to make successive plantings all spring.  I went out tonight, and noticed that the 2 cilantro plants that I had bought at the garden center were just about to bolt!  I was not happy.  I picked a lot of leaves from those plants.  I do still have 3 or 4 cilantro plants that I grew from seed to pick from.  They are pretty far from harvest.  Unfortunately, when the days start to get hot, cilantro bolts quickly.

Basil does much better in the heat, but it needs to be picked aggressively, or it, too, will flower before I've got a chance to get a good use out of it.  I need to plant another row or so of it.  Tonight, I also planted a new variety of basil that I bought at the garden center, a variety called "basil boxwood" that looks like it will keep from bolting for a while. 

I have tons of parsely this year.  For some reason, I don't ever seem to be able to grow it well from seed, so I have given up and buy it at the garden center.  It's a lot cheaper than buying it at the grocery store, and it's easy to grow once it's stuck in the ground!  In my compost-rich raised beds, I don't bother adding additional fertilizer when I plant herbs. 

Hopefully, this weekend I can make up and freeze some pesto.  I think I'll try and alternate once a week between making pesto and herb rub and try and make a chimi churri as often as I can!