Lavender & Mint Herbal Bouquet

Herbal bouquets are a great way to dress up your windowsills and your meals.  (Beverages, too!)  Most herbs are sturdy plants that will last a week or more in a vase, especially if you refresh them with cool water every day.  And the best part about having herbs close at hand is that you’re more likely to use them: a few fresh mint leaves in your tea, a sprig of thyme tucked into your chicken and pasta, some fresh lavender sprinkled over your salad.  You can make bouquets out of herbs you cut from your garden or fresh herbs that you buy at the store or farmer’s market.

As cooler days approach, you can keep the indoor herbs tradition going by transplanting some outside herbs into a pot and placing them in a warm and sunny spot inside.  (But be careful not to put them right next to a heat vent, because too much hot air will dry them out.)  Indoor herbs will add natural fragrance to whatever room they’re in.  Some of them — sage and chives come to mind — are so powerfully pungent that you may actually want to leave them outside.  If your formerly outdoor plants don’t take kindly to being shuttled inside, try growing new plants from seeds.  As long as you give them nutritious, well-drained soil, they ought to sprout within 7 to 10 days.

In the meantime, enjoy your fresh-cut herbal bouquets!

Herbed Scrambled Eggs with Brie

An egg is a nearly-perfect food, replete in vitamins and minerals (except Vitamin C) and with more accessible protein than a steak.  It’s comes in convenient packaging and can be eaten in every conceivable way — baked, hard-boiled, scrambled, souffléd, pan-fried, poached, even raw (although the latter is only advisable if you’re on a first-name basis with the hens).

Scrambled is probably the easiest way to prepare an egg and therefore probably the way most of us make our egg-based breakfasts.  But why limit yourself to morning eggs?  This sophisticated version of scrambled eggs with Brie and fresh herbs is best served in the evening.  You won’t believe how delicious a five-minute dinner can be!

Herbed Scrambled Eggs with Brie

Cut a few slices off of the Brie and save the rest for a later meal of crackers and fruit.  (Normally, you’d want to have the Brie at room temperature before serving, but since you’re going to be heating it anyway and it’s much easier to cut when cold, take it out of the refrigerator just before using.)  Whether or not you remove the edible white rind or include it in your slices is up to your tastebuds.

Snip or thinly slice whatever fresh herbs you have at hand — in this case, I used pineapple sage, chives, and basil — and set aside.  Put a non-stick pan on the stove over medium heat and add a pat of butter to it.

Crack two eggs into a bowl, add about 1/2 cup whole milk, and whisk with a fork until well-blended.  Grind in a bit of fresh pepper and sea salt.  (Don’t overdo it — you can always add more later.)  By now, your pan should be the perfect temperature.  Pour in eggs and let set for a minute or two.  When they start bubbling up, use a spoon or heat-proof spatula to move the eggs around and scramble them.  Add fresh herbs and Brie and continue to cook, stirring constantly, until the egg is cooked through and opaque.  Immediately remove from heat and serve, garnishing with tomatoes or more fresh herbs if desired.

Enjoy!

Sunflower Sprouts

Windowsills are a great place to grow kitchen herbs and sprouts.  If you have an unobstructed east- or west-facing window, whatever you choose to plant will have a very happy home; if you give your plant some toothsome kitchen scraps, it’ll have an even happier home.  (In my case, whenever I use eggs, I add a little bit of cold water to the eggy bowl, swish it, and then pour it into the plant.  Crushed eggshells also make great fertilizer.  Just be careful not to overfeed your house plants–if you do, mold can develop!)

This spring, after going on a what-do-I-already-have? rampage through my pantry, I  wound up planting dried Northern beans, some wheatberries, and raw sunflower seeds.  And guess what?  They all grew!  (Which really made me think about that old wives’ tale I’d heard as a kid about watermelon seeds growing in your belly…)  The raw sunflower seeds from Trader Joe’s did the best, so I planted another batch and then gave the seeded soil some windowsill real estate.  I planted them with the intention of snipping off the sprouts and adding them to my salads, but they’re looking so cute that I may have to let them become sunflowers…

…or not.  It is getting to be lunchtime, after all.

The difference between herbs and spices is simple:  herbs are the leaves of the plants while spices are the dried roots, bark, pods, and fruit.  Coriander, for example, is the seed of a cilantro plant.  Vanilla is an edible pod, cinnamon is bark, and cloves are the dried flower buds of S. aromaticum, an evergreen tree.

Both herbs and spices are most flavorful when fresh.  When using fresh herbs, swish them gently in a bowl of cold water to clean them and then pat them dry.  Chop them just before using–many herbs darken when cut.  Oftentimes, it is best to add them at the end of cooking your dish so that they retain more of their true flavor.  Keep dried herbs in a cool, dark place, and right before using them, crush them between your fingers to release their flavor.  Most spices come pre-ground and thus will lose their flavor more quickly than they would if you ground them at the last minute; just be aware of this and replace them as necessary.