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Showing posts with the label culinary herbs

Re-activate my sleeping relationship with Basil

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When I recently bought my rosemary plant I also bought a pot of basil. I could not resist how cheap it was against the cost of rosemary. I have always had ongoing relationships with herbs. And so here I go again trying to re-activate those sleeping relationships one herb at a time. As wiki re-introduces me to basil it says, basil is considered the "king of herbs" by many chefs. "Basil" comes from the Latin word basilicus, meaning dragon and being the root for basilisk, but this likely was a linguistic reworking of the word as brought from Greece". As we all already know basil is most often used fresh in cooking recipes. As a general practice fresh or dried basil leaves are added last to a dish essentially because heat quickly destroys its flavour. Basil serves as the main ingredients in preparing pesto. Take olive oil, herb sauce and pine nuts and presto there's pesto. Basil can be kept fresh "for a short time in plastic bags in the refrige

Smile a little smile for me Rosemary

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I think that's a line from a song popular while I was growing up. But this is not about a song. It is about, yes, you guessed right. It is about a Mediterranean culinary herb called rosemary. Yes from the mint family and said to be commonly found near seas. Rosemary is "a woody, perennial herb with fragrant evergreen needle-like leaves", and grows up to 5 feet tall upright". It thrives as a trailing, too. I can't believe it bears white, pink, purple or blue flowers which comes out winters or spring. The first time I tried to grow rosemary was a disappointing experience. That plant died, you see. That was almost 7 years ago. Today, I will try to grow one again. Here's another interesting fact: "rosemary is easily pruned into shapes and has been used for topiary". Awesome! "When grown in pots, it is best kept trimmed to stop it getting straggly and unsightly, though when grown in a garden, rosemary can grow quite large and still be attractive.