My Favorite Herbs and What They're Good For

And now a poem about herbs:

I love herbs.
It's one of those things that makes me a nerd(s).

Wow. If that has inspired you like it inspired me, here's some more stuff about herbs.

My number 1 favorite herb to grow.

Basil. It just is. It's pretty. It's easy to sow from seed. It's great in pots or garden beds. I love to eat it. I make pestos like a crazed woman and then I freeze them in ice cube trays and eat it all year long. It flowers and attracts bees. It could go in a bouquet if you wanted to (and I've done this before). I just love it. If you have trouble with slugs getting it, surround it with cracked egg shells.

My number 2.

Rosemary. It smells like heaven to me. I could just rub it all over myself and be happy. I love to cook with it and the dried just doesn't compare for me. I grow it in a pot so I can bring it in in the winter since it usually dies in a deciduous area if left outside.

After that I fall apart and have trouble choosing, but here's a decent list that I've kind of sort of ordered according to preference.

Chives. Perfect garnish or stir fry or potato anything. I haven't had success with seeds so I recommend a start. They come back year after year. They taste amazing. They have pretty flowers. Perennial.

Dill. Easiest herb to grow if you're looking for that. Great with fish, soup, salad, summer vegetables. Annual, but reseeds itself like a beast.

Parsley. Pretty as a garnish. Tasty as an herb. Biennial (grows the first year, then grows and goes to seed in the spring of the second year).

Sage. Thanksgiving will never be the same for me without fresh sage. It's very pretty, there are tons of varieties. And it tastes much much better than its dried counterpart.  Lots of beautiful varieties to choose from. Perennial.

Thyme. Ditto the Thanksgiving thing. It's not so pretty (well, some varieties are, but the main kind I grow is just kind of gangly), but it sure tastes good with chicken, soup, and a lot of other foods. It's easy to dry because the leaves are small, so you can save some over the winter. There are many many varieties. You can get it tiny and creeping or bigger and flowering. Perennial.

Cilantro. I love this herb so much fresh that it's embarrassing, but I'm not always successful at growing it from seed (alas). That said, it's really easy to grow from seed for most people, so don't ask me what my problem is. Annual, but often reseeds.

Stevia. Must be grown from a start. I use this in smoothies instead of sugar during the summer and love it for this purpose. Also, when I am pregnant and chew the leaves, the taste it leaves in my mouth is awesome when everything else I eat when pregnant leaves a nasty taste in my mouth. I don't know why this is but because of it stevia holds a special place in my heart. Annual.

French Tarragon. I think tarragon can be pretty good dried, but it's even better fresh. Perennial.

There are others that I love for different, non-food reasons.

Scent and attract bees/butterflies:

Lavender (scent and attracts bees/butterflies). If you live in a deciduous area, be sure to get a hardy variety; others will die overwinter.
Bee Balm (beautiful blooms and attracts bees and butterflies)
Cone flower (i.e. echinacea) (pretty, attracts bees/butterflies and bugs)
Lemon Balm (lovely scent, great border plant or one you can stick in pesky open spaces that you don't know what to do with because it grows easily anywhere, attracts bees/butterflies after flowering)

Ground cover potential or rocky border potential:

Creeping thyme is my favorite looking, but not strong enough to grow well in our wet, then dry paths.
Winter Savory (great by rocks, also tastes great in pasta sauce)
Thyme (lots of different varieties so you'll have to ask your garden people for the lower growing types. I have one called caraway thyme that is not so low as the creeping thyme, but is much hardier, spreads better, and is still reasonably low for a ground cover)
Oregano (golden is good for this. It can get tallish later in the summer. you can weedwhack it or tromple it or something, but I like it)

Teas or garnishes:

Mint (Tea, ice cream, also so lovely in cold drinks--even water--delightful). My favorite mint is chocolate mint, but I love them all. Be careful with growing mint as it is invasive so put it in a pot.
Chamomile (Tea--you use the flowers of chamomile, not the leaves)
Lemon Balm (I don't use this in tea. I think it tastes like spinach, but other people successfully use it and have it taste like lemon. Maybe I let mine get too old or something.)
Parsley (curly)

Two years ago I wrote a post about herbs with more detailed info. So read if you are an herb nerd, read on.

9 Five-Minute Meals Cheaper Than the Dollar Menu

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about how irritating it is to me when people talk about how cheap fast food is. Fast food is not cheap. Fast food is fast. But homemade food can be too.

For each member of our family to order two things off of the dollar menu equals $12 (plus tax in Indiana). Below are several butt-kicking meals that can be made in 5 minutes. They each serve about 6 people (well, 6 of our people, which is 2 leanish adults and 4 youngish children, so take that for what it's worth--we're not feeding teenagers, although 2 dollar menu items isn't going to feed teenagers either). These meals are not gourmet meals and they are not necessarily entirely made from scratch or whole food ingredients (we're comparing them to fast food chains, people, so come on), though most can be adapted to homemade/whole food if you have 15-20 more minutes. Also, some require no or very little cooking time, but others are crock pot meals, which means you have to think of them in the morning (yeah, I don't always manage that either), but they still only take five minutes of your day to prepare. 

1. Shrimp (pre-cooked, yes) with cocktail sauce, bagged Caesar salad, and garlic bread.
Thaw the shrimp, toss the bagged salad, add butter and garlic to the bread and broil for a few minutes.
Cost: $11.50
shrimp: 7.00/lb, cocktail: 1.50, bagged salad (which includes dressing): 2.00, bread: 1.00

2. Sub sandwiches with fruit.
Put out the toppings, cut the fruit.
Cost: $9.50
deli meat: 4.00, buns: 1.50, pickles: .50, cheese: .75, toppings (tomatoes, lettuce, mayo, ketchup, mustard): .75, apples: 1.00, oranges: .50, pears: .50

3. Scrambled eggs and toast
Scramble your eggs with veggies like broccoli, spinach, or canned tomatoes (drained) and maybe some cheese if you'd like. Make toast. Eat.
Cost: $3.50
6 eggs: .60, can tomatoes: 1.00, cup spinach: .40, cheese: .50, half a loaf of bread: 1.00

4. Dorito Salad
Kip loves this stuff and he is not a huge salad guy. Even my kids will eat it if they get plenty of Doritos to buy them off. Chop lettuce, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, and cheddar cheese. Add a can of chicken (drained). Toss. Add crumbled Doritos and serve with Ranch dressing.
Cost: $8.00
head romaine: .75, can olives: 1.00, cucumber: .50, tomatoes: .50, cheese: .75, canned chicken: 2.00, half bag of Doritoes: 1.50, dressing: 1.00

5. Crock Pot Ranch Chili.
Toss it all in the crock pot and turn the crock on.
Cost: $5.50 for 6-8 servings
chicken: 1.50, tomatoes: 1.00, beans: .50, corn: .50, ranch powder: .50-1.00, cream cheese: 1.00

6. Ranch Roast with potatoes and carrots.
Toss it all in the crock, cover it in Ranch powder, turn the crock on.
Cost: $11.00
roast: $8.00, potatoes: .50, carrots: .50, ranch powder:1.00-2.00

7. Crock Pot Italian Chicken with Instant Rice.
Toss in crock and turn it on. Make the rice when it's ready. With a few extra minutes, this can be whole-fooded.
Cost: $7.00
chicken: 4.00, cream cheese: 1.00, soup: 1.00, seasoning: .75, rice: (truth be told I have no idea on the instant, so I'm putting a normal rice price): .25

8. Crock Pot Rosemary Chicken
Throw a frozen bird in the crock with seasonings and turn the crock on.
Cost: $7.50
chicken: 6.00, seasonings: .50, potatoes: .50, carrots: .50

9. ...And then there's always angel hair. I know I mention it too much, but it's one of our super quick stand-bys.
Cost: $3.00
pasta: 1.00, sauce: 2.00

Pizza Roll

We eat homemade pizza about once every week or two. It's the only food I can think of that we eat so frequently, so even though we have our favorites, I like to switch things up a bit here and there.

Recently we tried a pizza roll (otherwise referred to as stromboli). You take an uncooked pizza. And roll it up. (And then you cook it of course.) I know; I know; you're still trying to wrap your brain around that earth shattering declaration, right? And I'm willing to bet that there are more than a few of you asking, "But why?" The biggest reason is because you were bored and this seemed fun. But there are a couple of practical reasons for making a pizza roll instead of a standard pizza.

1. You can make this with a homemade dough (as I did because I'm an overachiever and stuff and also because I have a breadmaker, which makes this a 2 minute task). But you don't have to. You can use frozen bread dough. You can use refrigerated biscuit or croissant dough. What I'm trying to say is that you can totally cheat. You can open up a can or two of croissant dough, flatten it a bit, slather some toppings on, roll it up, cook, and badabing, you've got dinner ready in 20 minutes. (See if your Dominoes guy can make it to your house that quick, eh?) But you don't have to cheat if you don't want to. This isn't a recipe that has to be made with refrigerated whatever or it will never be the same. 

2. I don't know why, but when something is rolled up like this, I don't feel bad giving it to my kids/husband cold in their lunches. It feels more like a pepperoni roll or something that just a sad little slice of cold pizza their neglectful mother packed up for them. What I'm trying to say is that warm this is a meal, but cold it becomes a snack food or a travel food. I like that about it. You can just eat the cool version like a sandwich in your hand.

3. You can dip these in marinara. What is it about dipping things that is so fun (especially for children)? I don't know, but the phenomena exists and I just roll with it. These are dip-able and my people like that.

Pepperoni Roll
adapted from What About Pie?
Makes 1 large pizza
Cost: $4.50
mozzarella: 3.00, dough: .50, pepperoni: 1.00

Step 1:
Make your favorite dough. Or pull it out of the freezer. Or bust open that can of refrigerated dough. Whatever. Just procure some dough, okay.

Step 2:
Flatten your dough into a rectangle, just like you're making cinnamon rolls.

Step 3: (this one can be skipped)
Add a very thin layer of pizza sauce. Too much sauce and it will ooze and sog. But just a thin layer will work. I did this, wanting to be sure that my kids ate at least a tiny bit of the fruit/veggie food group. However, you can totally skip the sauce if you want and just head straight for the cheese. Then after they're cooked you can dip in sauce if you like.

Step 4:
Add toppings. We did pepperoni and kept it simple at that.

Step 5:
Add cheese. We used mozzarella, but you can go all gourmet if you want.

Step 6:
Roll it. You're going to roll it so that it comes out long instead of short. Maybe you cheated your way through physics, but I know you can still do this, even though I did forget to take a picture. Seal the seam. Use a little water if you need to to get it to stick.

Step 7:
Put it on a lightly greased pan with the sealed seam down.

Step 8:
Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes or until the top of the dough is browned. This cooking time may vary depending on the type of dough you use, so keep your eye on it.

Step 9:
Let it cool for a few minutes. Then cut it with a nice sharp knife. If you try to cut it while hot with a dull knife, your cheese and stuff will just squish out the ends. So use a sharp knife and a gentle hand.

Step 10:
Eat. Dipping if desired.