Freezing Herbs - Preservation in Ice

About a week ago I posted ways to dry your herbs in the microwave. Today I am going to present another method of preserving herbs. When drying an herb you can change the flavor, but preserve it. However, some herbs, like chives lose so much flavor in drying that the dried herb is a shadowy substitute for the real thing. So if you want to preserve a closer to fresh flavor, freezing may be the answer. There are many different ways to preserve herbs through freezing. Some have a longer life than others.



Short Term Storage (three weeks)

Lay whole herb leaves (for sage or basil) or whole sprigs (like thyme or tarragon) onto cookie sheets lined with parchment or wax paper. Place the sheets in the freezer for at least one hour, or until herbs are frozen. Then place the frozen herbs into freezer bags and press out excess air. Label the bags with contents and date.

To use the herbs, remove leaves or sprigs you need and chop them into your recipes. No need to defrost before use.


Longer Term Storage


Herbal Ice cubes – (4 months)

Freezing chopped herbs in water or broth. Although not as concentrated as oil purees, the individual cubes are easy to add to winter recipes.

Freeze recipe-sized portions of herbs in the liquid base you most often use for winter soups, stews, sauces and marinades. Later pull out the individual cubes and drop them as needed into the cook pot.

One of the easiest ways to do this is chop and blend the herbs, then measure 1 tsp. to 1 Tbls. Into sections of an ice cube tray then cover with broth or water. Once they are frozen pop out the cubes and place them in a zip seal bag with the measurement and herbs listed on the bag.


Frozen Puree – (4 months)

Pureeing, or making an herbal paste, is the more reliable method for freezing fresh herbs. All you need light oil, fresh herbs and a blender.

The technique involves slowly drizzling canola, safflower or other cooking oil while chopping the leaves in a blender. The oil coats the herb particles, preserving their color, flavor and texture. Purees can be used with any culinary herb. You can combine two or three herbs and even add garlic if you want. Freeze the herb puree in small containers so that you can use what you defrost within a week. Always label the jars with contents (herbs and oil used) and the date.

Purees are ideal in any dish including roasted meats, vegetables, sauces, butter, marinades, and salad dressings. They are used as an equal substitute for the freshly chopped herbs. So, if a recipe calls fro 1 Tbls freshly chopped basil, simply substitute 1 Tbls. Basil puree.

To create Puree:

• 1 to 2 cups fresh herbs
• ¼ to ½ cup oil

Gently rinse and dry herbs. Put the herbs in a blender or food processor and pulse-chop until finely minced. With the motor running, slowly drizzle the oil into the chopped herbs until they are coated completely, but without excess oil pooling at the bottom. If the herbs look dry, add a bit more oil and mix well. Scoop puree into small, ¼ to ½ cup containers. Pour a layer of oil over the top, then cover, label, date and place in the freezer.

The best part of these methods? When winter gets you down, these will be a tasty reminder of summer’s bounty and that winter will not last forever.

These recipes are just one aspect of the Backyard Patch. For more details on Herb Puree (Pastes) search our blogs in August 2010. To read our herb research, or see a listing of our more than 200 herbal blends for cooking, tea and bath visit the Backyard Patch on-line at http://www.backyardpatch.com/

Dry your harvest!

I have used five different methods to dry the harvest from my garden. All are easy and I have listed them in order of energy and attention needed. Those that need the most attention are listed last.


Before you begin:

Always pick herbs just before the plant flowers to insure the strongest flavor.

Harvest in the late morning after the dew has lifted, but before the sun becomes too strong and evaporates the essential oils.

Cut only healthy herbs. Don’t worry about a few dead or damaged leaves; just pluck them off before the drying process.

Ways to dry:

                 1. Hang Drying – this is ideal for any long-stemmed herbs, tarragon, lavender, sage, rosemary,  mints, lemon balm, etc.

Take stems and bundle together, tying them or holding them with a rubber band. Depending on the size of the stem 10 to 12 stems is a good size bundle. Choose a hanging location that has good air circulation, minimal light, especially sunlight, and dust. In my first home I suspended a rack from the ceiling in the basement, draped a white bed sheet over the top to collect the dust and had plenty of air circulation under and around the herbs. The average drying time is 1 to 2 weeks. In humid places, like Illinois, running a dehumidifier during the muggy months can help.

Once they are dry, and you know they are completely dry when they crumble in your hand, you can crumble them into jars for long-term storage. Or you can leave them on the stem for longer storage by placing them stem and all in a zip lock bag. Herbs left on the stem will keep their flavor several months longer than those crumbled and a year longer than those ground or powdered.

                2. Screen drying – smaller leaf or stem herbs, flowers and other petite plants are perfect for        screen drying.

Place herbs on a window screen. You can also use cheese cloth stretched over a frame or even lay them out on paper towel on corrugated cardboard. What you want is good air circulation again and minimal sunlight. The herbs will dry in a week or less, but you may need to turn them over depending on your air conditions.

I purchased scratch and dent window screens from a building supply store all the same size and shape. For this we then crafted a frame where the screens could slide in and out to make access easier once during loading and unloading.

                3. Oven drying – can be used for any herbs, but is best for those that do not do well with longer  methods, especially Basil. You do have to be careful with sage that has a very volatile oil.

Remove the fresh leaves from the stalk and place them on an oven tray. You can layer the tray with parchment to make it easy to remove. There are two ways to use the oven, the short method and the long method. The short method you place the tray in a warm oven (350 to 400 degrees) for only 5 to 9 minutes until the herbs are dry and brittle. Do not walk away and leave them or you can end up with scorched herbs. If you have picked the herbs previously (up to 24 hours ahead) you can reduce the oven temp to 250 to 300 degrees.

The long method is easier because you can set it and forget it. With the long method you set the over to 350 degrees and allow it to pre-heat. Then take the tray of herbs and set in the oven after you turn it off. Leaving the oven door open to allow moisture to escape and allow a couple of hours or overnight for the herbs to dry. If you have a gas oven with a pilot light, you can use this method without turning the oven on. It may take 6 to 8 hours to dry the herbs this way.

                4. Refrigeration method – this is perfect for herbs with small leaves, thyme, rosemary,             marjoram, or savory.

Place the small leaved herbs on a plate or a square of cardboard laid with paper towel and place in the refrigerator. You can also do this with basil leaves but the paper towel is required. Check them frequently and stir them around to avoid wilting and ensure even drawing. The drying time varies depending on the herb. Thyme is much faster, while basil may take more time. Once they are dry place them in containers.

The down side of this method is you need extra space in refrigerator and you can have flavor transfer. Some foods stored in the fridge may flavor the herbs and some foods may pick up the flavor of the herbs.

                5. Microwave drying – good for small batches of herbs, especially those that need to dry quickly or risk turning moldy, like Basil.

Lay the herbs out on paper towel. Don’t fill the sheet too full, then place another towel on top. You can do multiple layers of herbs and toweling. Place the towel stack in the microwave and microwave on high for 2 minutes stopping every 30 seconds to be sure they do not burn. Remove leaves that become crumble dry and continue until all herbs are dry to the touch.

Do you have a favorite drying technique? Which one gives you the most success? Leave a comment and let’s chat about it.

At the Backyard Patch we make hundred of blends using dried herbs if you are interested in learning more about our combinations, visit us at http://www.backyardpatch.com/

Harvest Tea

This time of year when I am spending so much time harvesting, I need a hearty tea to keep me going. I found this blend in a book (which book escapes me after all these years.) What I can tell you is the flavor is all about fall its apple base and spicy overtones make it marvelous on a cool evening. The smell is heavenly.


I make all my blends in jars and shake blend them to avoid bruising the herbs which helps give my herb blends and teas a lengthy shelf life. I craft this tea and keep it in a large glass jar in the kitchen to brew whenever I needed a pick-me-up. If it was the time of year I was harvesting late into the night I made this blend with black tea. If in the morning, I used green tea. And once I discovered red bush (rooibos) tea from Africa, I used that all the time.


Harvest Tea

• 1/3 cup dried apple pieces, chopped in small pieces
• ¼ cup hibiscus flowers
• ¼ cup rooibos or black tea
• ¼ cup rose hip shells
• ¼ cup allspice berries
• 1/3 cup wintergreen leaves (substitute spearmint but not peppermint)
• 1 Tbls. Currants or dired cranberries
• 15 inches of cinnamon stick or ¼ cup ground cinnamon
• 1 rounded Tbls. birch bark (You can leave this out. I find its medicinal benefits useful in cool weather)

Combine dry ingredients in a glass jar. Add the wintergreen oil; shake well to blend and distribute the oil. Store away from light for up to a year. Use 1 heaping teaspoon per cup of hot water. Steep 5 minutes and sweeten only with honey.

These recipes are just one aspect of the Backyard Patch. To read our herb research, or see a listing of our 25 different herbal teas visit the Backyard Patch on-line at http://www.backyardpatch.com/

this little herbie catches a bug

We're a week from the Nov/Dec publication deadline for The Essential Herbal, and of course the soap biz is crazy at this time of year, so coming down with a virus isn't good.
Last night I started feeling something going on in my throat, and took a good dose of elderberry with holy basil. This morning it was still there, so I repeated that.
And I got serious about kicking this thing.
My friend Betty Pillsbury suggested some sage tea. My pal Rosanne Tartaro said soup. Here's what I did....
First, I made a blend of tinctures:
elderberry
holy basil
ephedra
goldenrod
St John's wort
All of these are either anti-viral or will help with the head-clog, and very beginning of respiratory issues.
Then I started a big pot of ham and cabbage. This is something we ate all the time when I was a kid, and it is probably a standard PA Dutch dish. My grandmother and mother both loved cabbage, and passed that along to me. So far, the next generation does not share that love.First filling a big pot about 1/3 full of water, and then adding a large ham hock, I left that to simmer for about an hour until the meat came off the bone. To that, I added a nice chopped cabbage, a couple of onions, some turnips, and a few potatoes. That cooked for a couple more hours.
I went into the garden and plucked a nice sprig of sage, and put that into a pint mason jar, along with a slice of crystallized ginger and a licorice root stick, boiled water, and filled the jar, pouring the water over the herbs.Here's my lunch:It was really good, and it will be good again for supper :-).
I will continue the sage tea and the tincture blend every hour or so. This thing just cannot get a grip on me right now!
And now, to bed.

a fine late summer evening

I was enjoying the cool breeze blowing over the deck, picking **&%^&*& elderberries again, when it dawned on me that I could sit out here and blog. The sun is about halfway down, and after the mid-90's of today, it is very comfortable. In fact, this may be the most perfect evening of the whole summer. The new deck furniture, purchased in mid-July when the prices went down, has hardly been used. Soon it will be put away for until next year.
A week ago we were all along the beach and bay in Delaware looking for bayberries. It was 102 degrees. There were very few bayberries to be found, but it was probably because we weren't sure where to look - other than protected wildlife and or nature sanctuaries. We did find beach plums. This was the first time we'd ever seen them. Perhaps different plants taste different, but the ones we tried were very puckery - like they had a lot of tannic acid. They'd probably make wonderful jam, though.
Earlier today I wandered around trying to find proof that summer isn't over yet. No such luck. It was starting to become clear when cornhusks started flying through the air like giant snowflakes the other day. Farmers are cutting the corn all around here. The view is changing. The sky is a different color, too. But that's not all.
Walking past the garden, somebody was busy munching on what's left of the bean leaves. He looked at me in a sidelong manner, as if to say, "what are YOU lookin' at?"
The dogwood berries are getting to be a deep red, which usually does not signal that there's a lot of summer time left :-(.I totally missed my favorite stage of the hibiscus seedpods, when they look like they are made of leather. They must have hit that on the day we went to the shore, because they are right by the door, and never had that sturdy, shiny look.
Next up is the seedpod of Velvetleaf. I posted it earlier on the TEH facebook page as jimson weed, and Sue Hess discreetly clued me in. Back in the late 70's, there was a rash of jimson weed usage. I seem to remember someone trying to jump from the roof of the parking garage directly across from the police station.... ANyway... at the time I was out in a meadow with some kids, and someone pointed it out. Probably both plants were close together, and someone mentioned the barrel shaped pods. Hey, lots of things could be barrel-shaped-ish! So 30 or 40 years later, we got that one straightened out.
The Sweet Annie is high as an elephant's eye and covered with the tiny balls that will soon make those with allergies miserable. It smells wonderful to me.
The sea oats are drying in the sun, shimmering and quaking to the gentlest of breezes.It doesn't look like there was much proof of a lasting summer out there today. I will continue to look. Maybe down in the deep part of the woods, where the burning sun hasn't managed to cut through the trees and burn leaves. That's the real problem, you know. It isn't that summer is over, it's just that it's been so hot that the plants aren't handling it well. Poor things. That's what it is.

How to Dry herbs in the Microwave

Using herbs after the summer requires preservation. On Monday I talked about preserving the fresh taste using an herb paste. Drying takes up no freezer space and allows you to fill your spice jars with your own garden bounty quickly and easily. There are many methods of preservation that can be used. One that is gaining in popularity, especially for the home herb gardener is using the microwave. The microwave allows you to dry some herbs that are not as easy to dry by hanging, like basil and chives. If you want to try drying your herbs in the microwave, just follow these simple steps.

The steps to accomplishing this are rather simple.

Steps:

1. Pick out the herbs you want to dry and harvest them. Mid-morning harvesting is best as the dew has lifted but the heat of the day has not removed the flavor oils from the leaves. Avoid the oldest leaves as they are sometimes tough. When harvesting perennial herbs in summer you can cut about 3/4 of the height of the plant, but in fall you should cut only ½ the height to give the plant needed food for winter. Annuals of course can be cut to the ground at the end of the season.
2. Remove any damage or discolored leaves and remove the leaves from the stems. (Unless you are drying thyme then it is best to leave it on the stem.)
3. Rinse the herbs. Run cool water over them in colander. Dry the herbs between layers of paper towel, patting them down gently to remove as much water as possible
4. Lay the herbs out on paper towel. Don’t fill the sheet too full, then place another towel on top.
5. Place the towel in the microwave and microwave on high for 2 minutes stopping every 30 seconds to be sure they do not burn.
6. Remove the paper towel from the microwave and let the herbs rest a few minutes. This allows the moisture from the microwave to evaporate into the air.
7. If the herbs are crisp to the touch they are fully dry, store them in a dry dark container with a tight fitting lid. Always label your herbs, as they look ands smell much different dried than fresh and will not be as easily identified.

 At the Backyard Patch we make hundred of blends using dried herbs if you are interested in learning more about our combinations, visit us at http://www.backyardpatch.com/

Your Herbal Harvest

You can begin harvesting your herbs for daily use when the plant has enough foliage to ensure continued growth. Successive harvests throughout the season encourage bushy plants with stronger leaf growth, so plan to cut back your plants and preserve your harvest frequently during the season.  When harvesting, do it in the morning, after the dew dries but before the temperature climbs, to ensure that you've caught the plant when its essential oils are strongest.

I print this information on a somewhat regular basis, some of it will apply now to the fall season we are about to enter.  Other iinformation is for summer, so take the information most useful to your situation now.

Here are some things to remember:

• Herbs are at their best when they're fresh-picked. For daily use, pick just what you need. Wrap herbs in a damp paper towel and put them in a tightly-closed plastic bag in the refrigerator.
• Long-stemmed herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano, savory, dill, fennel) can be kept on the kitchen counter for a few days. Strip lower leaves for immediate use and put the stems in a narrow-necked vase filled with water, out of the sun.
• Herbs produce their most intense oil concentration and flavor after the flower buds appear but before they open. Harvest at this time for most uses. Blooming plants such as basil and oregano may still be suitable for vinegars, however.
• Harvest annual herbs until frost, making as many successive harvests as possible without damaging the plant. Don't cut too near the ground, for lower foliage is necessary for strong, continuing growth. At the end of the season, harvest the entire plant.
• Harvest perennial herbs until about one month before the frost date. Late pruning encourages tender growth that may be killed by the frost, and plants need the regrowth to see them through the winter.
• Harvest tarragon or lavender flowers in early summer, then cut the plants to half their height to encourage fall flowering.
• Harvest herb seeds (mustard, fennel) as the seed pods darken and dry, but before they burst. Secure a paper bag over the seed head to complete ripening, then cut the stem and hang the bag for further drying.
• Harvest herb roots (bloodroot, chicory, ginseng, goldenseal, horseradish) after the foliage fades.

The Backyard Patch has many herb blends, teas and balth products crafted form hand-harvested herbs.  To see our line of products visit us at http://www.backyardpatch.com/

For more about harvesting (and using!) your herbs:

• The Herb Society of America's Essential Guide to Growing and Using Herbs, by Katherine Schlosser
• Your Backyard Herb Garden, by Miranda Smith