Herbs in the Garden

Posts Tagged ‘herbal cooking’

Wow, these are good!

A really excellent herb-snack, these Rosemary glazed nuts are beautiful and simple to make.

Six ingredients is all it takes. Mixed nuts (or just your favorites) fresh Rosemary, Cayenne pepper, butter, brown sugar, and sea or Kosher salt. You can find Nigella’s recipe here.

You can tweak the recipe and add a bit more cayenne for those that prefer the spicier stuff.

Me? I’ll add more Rosemary next time since I love the stuff.

Either way, it’s all really good!

Gluten Free Herbed Bread

Gluten free herbed bread, that is… this is a recent dietary adjustment at our house.

I combined a gluten free bread mix from Bob’s Red Mill along with another GF bread recipe I found. I tossed in some herbs, ( see below) a variety of seeds, and baked the whole thing into a large round loaf. Surprisingly it  turned out very nicely!

I never know what I’ll get when I start to experiment like this – sometimes I get carried away… *blush*

 It made a flavorful heavy/hearty “whole grain” style loaf. When paired with a steaming hot mug of beef stew, the herb bread was the perfect “dunking” companion.

I have long added herbs to my ‘regular’ flour breads and rolls, and now continue to experiment with my gluten free breads. Thankfully there are many great GF blogs I follow for great recipe ideas! If you are interested let me know and I’ll post a few of my favorites.

Here are some herbs to add to your breads. Try pairing a few of them together, or for your first try, you might just go with a single herb.  Adding seeds such as caraway, dill, coriander, and others can add great flavor to breads and rolls, too!

You could also do plain bread or rolls served with an herb butter. Herbed butter is SO easy to make and really delicious with vegetables or breads. OK, with anything really.

Yum!

Have You Tried Making Your Own Herb Butter?

If not, it’s high time you did! It’s easy to make and a real treat.

Herbed Butter on Bread

How to Make Herb Butter

You’ll need a softened stick of butter and about 2 tablespoons of finely minced fresh herbs.

Add the minced herbs to softened butter.

Add a pinch of sea salt(optional) and mix well.
Chill slightly to firm up butter.

You can store this in the refrigerator and use within a few days or you can freeze the herb butter into “log” shapes then cut them into butter pats.

Herb Butter Logs

For herb butter logs start by chilling your herb butter until it is cool enough to be handled, but has not become completely firm.

You’ll need a good sized piece of wax paper.

The wax paper should be large enough for you to form a “log” of butter in the center of the paper with enough room to roll up the paper around the log.

Spoon your chilled butter onto the waxed paper. Form into a log shape slightly smaller than a stick of butter.  Roll up the waxed paper around the butter to shape the log. I usually make mine about 1 1/2″ – 2″ thick, or roughly the same size as stick of butter would be…with rounded edges.

When you are ready to use your herb butter you can remove it from the freezer, (thaw slightly if frozen,) then slice into pats.

Be sure to keep any leftover butter chilled.

If you plan to store your butter in the freezer for awhile, make sure to store the wax papered log in a tightly sealed freezer bag.

Butter Molds

If you want to get creative, you can also use butter molds. We found lots of pretty ones at Amazon.com. Candy molds also work well, and the new silicone molds are great.

To use a butter mold, pack the molds with your herbed butter, chill for an hour or two; then pop the pretty little butter pats out of the molds. They are almost too pretty to eat!

Now go try that herb butter on some fish, bread or veggies.