Herbs for winter
Our mint and oregano have been starting to flower this week; it was high time we harvested them. Sofía and I went out with a pair of scissors this morning and filled up an entire grocery bag – almost a pound of fresh herbs!
Last year I hung the herbs to dry, but this year I decided to use my new (to me) dehydrator. Instead of taking a week, it took just 6 hours, and is supposed to be better for preserving the essential oils.
After washing and stripping the leaves, I filled four dehydrator screens. I already had a batch of yogurt culturing in there, so I wasn’t wasting any electricity. Yay!
By the time the yogurt was done, so were the herbs. I got about a quart of dried peppermint:
It was so much greener and more pungent than the mint I hung-dried last year, my hands felt tingly and cool just from crumbling it into the jar.
Think I got enough oregano? -grin- Even with salsa season coming up, I should be set for the next year.
It was a lot more work than I’d expected it to be, but at least it was over in a day instead of a week. And I rewarded myself with – what else?
A nice pot of peppermint tea.
July 28th, 2011 at 7:49 am
That is a nice dehydrator.
July 28th, 2011 at 4:46 pm
It’s actually quite old, early 80’s I think! It’s been in a couple people’s garages; the person I got it from said they meant to use it and just never did. It still works pretty well (temperature’s a bit off) and I’m making it earn its keep!
July 29th, 2011 at 12:38 am
Where do you keep getting all these amazing free items?!?! The freecycle in my area leaves much to be desired. 😥
July 29th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Our area Freecycle is very active! This means there’s a lot of good stuff up – but it also means it’s very hard to get, sometimes, because there are people that watch it obsessively and grab stuff up usually before I can get to it. (I’m mad I missed out on a vacuum sealer lately). It helps that I know how to write, while many other people seem to think “hey i want this k thx” is enough of an email to send even for something really nice (I’m not exaggerating).
July 29th, 2011 at 1:08 pm
I noticed that too when I was actively free cycling – it seemed that people would simply hover over their emails waiting for things to pop up. And many times I got it before them simply because I wrote a nice letter about how their item(s) would be helping my family. I got an entire dining room set that had belonged to the girl’s grandfather because she thought my email had a personal and honest tone. I wish more people would realize that just because it’s email doesn’t mean it needs to be depersonalized!