Category Archives: Herbs

Seasoned Oil

DSC02281 Though I always love the idea of seasoned oil,  because it is out of our usual recipes and routines, I find that we rarely use it.

DSC02288This particular oil is made in Italy for Italian and English speakers consumption, and it contains:

  • Sunflower oil
  • Black peppercorns
  • Cinnamon
  • Coriander
  • Lemon leaves
  • Lemon grass

I personally am familiar with all of these items, except Lemon grass, which somehow I have never used, and I have not used Lemon leaves as a seasoning.  In the above mix of seasonings, the Lemon leaves are the dark green ones, the Lemon grass is the tan leaf, the Cinnamon is evident as the brown stick, the Black pepper is the set of black dots, and the Coriander is the set of tan dots.

I love dipping bread into Italian seasoned Olive oil, which is quite different from the above oil.   In specialty grocery stores they can convince me to buy various exotic ingredients or mixed products.  Today I uncorked the above bottle, at least seven years old, and separated out the spices.  The oil itself is rancid, but the bottle is nice,  and I would like to keep it.  Lesson:   To avoid waste, don’t get too many exotic oils!

A Satisfying Book Find

DSC01797 I found this little treasure of a book in an antique store, and purchased it.  A few thousand copies were published in 1992, 1993, and 1994.  The author, originally from Michigan, lived in East Texas for awhile.

DSC01798  I was extremely happy that I had purchased it, because it contains many unusual culinary recipes with herbs (even sorrel, an herb, vegetable which we have recently had a hard time locating), and edible flowers (for example Stuffed Squash Flowers).  It also contains ways to cultivate the herbs including  sorrel.   It also tells which herbs are annual and which are perennial.

DSC01799 Written by this lady, the book contains quite a few uses of herbs for health.  For example, did you know that dill tea can help hiccups?  In Hungary, they use caraway tea for this purpose to help a hiccuping infant.

This book will be a useful resource for our kitchen garden.