AUGUST 2016 ... WHAT'S COOKING FOR DINNER ?

After my sister's cataract surgery she no longer had to wear glasses to see distance.

Bugster2 wrote:After my sister's cataract surgery she no longer had to wear glasses to see distance.

I will need glasses he said. He can't correct the right eye. It's in bad shape he said.
At least I won't see that fog around everything I look at!

bethk wrote:Michelle ~ if you have trouble finding any herb plant (and I had a lot of difficulty finding French tarragon around here) you can do what I ended up doing.  Buy seeds.  It's great, easy to start in doors and only takes a few seeds for a pot full.  I have a gorgeous plant now and the excess seeds are waiting for when that plant looks like it needs to retire.  Then I'll just sow another crop.

We're on the same wavelength, Beth, as a couple of years ago, I started getting and starting a lot of herbs from seeds. Sometimes some of them are really slow growers (like thyme, which seems to take forever) so I get a couple of pots going and still use a transplant I get from my garden place. And, yep, like you, I save some seeds (well, Brian usually does it for me and puts them in some small envelopes with the other seeds) from the bolting herbs. Our winters have been so mild for a couple of years now that I am able to keep the herbs going straight thru the year (thank goodness that thyme keeps on growing). Plus Brian likes messing with the seeds I found out so that's a good thing. For someone who never gardened (just watched me and hung out with me in the yard and moved the heavy bags of mulch and compost, etc.), he sure has gotten into it in the three years since he retired. He gets a lot of joy out of it, too, which is super.

I just didn't want to wait for the French tarragon to grow so I ordered a transplant online a while back (out of season, too, I might add but I was still able to find it "right now"!!). Since we use a good bit of tarragon, I might get some seeds. Is it a slow grower? I sure hope not.

The other day Brian weeded and cleared out the raised garden, as it has to be moved about three feet to make room for the generator. He found a rogue basil plant that had been hiding behind something else (grown from seed). The whole garden is empty except for this beautiful dark green basil plant sticking out of the middle. I just made pesto recently so it's nice to have another source of the fresh stuff besides the two other pots of it I have. You can never have too much fresh basil, even if it's just to cut some, rustle it with your hands and put a few sprigs in a vase in the kitchen. It smells so darn good. Same thing with rosemary. I'd love to have a rosemary hedge I could walk by and brush into just so I could smell it in the air. I cut some for a kitchen vase sometimes, too. I have some in a pot but I have a huge granddaddy in the garden as well...

Beth wrote:I'm stuffed from supper. So is Mr. Amazing. Michelle, the tarragon/chive/shallot cream sauce I threw together tasted wonderful! Thanks so much for the idea. Dane even tried it and then spooned a little bit more on his chicken after he found out how tasty it was.

Laughed, as I start mine with shallots in butter, too. And I usually add some chives at the end! It's Brian's favorite. Plus, he makes the paneed chicken if he wants the sauce and I sure get the easy end of that. I'm really a dark meat chicken girl but my favorite way to have white meat chicken is paneed. And the sauce on top is delish.

He made some last week and I asked him to make a few extra so I could use some in sandwiches. One night when we were lazy, tired and hot, I made some chicken sandwiches on some nice white bread I toasted, heated the chicken pieces and then melted a couple slices of provolone on top of each. Made us a nice sandwich with some mayo and Dijon mustard, tomato (for me) and some nice crisp leaf lettuce. Just a simple sandwich but it tasted so good. We had some of those Stacy's Pita Chips on the side along with some fresh fruit salad -- a perfect meal for a very hot day. Done quickly and easily, too! When I have some of the sauce leftover, Beth, I'll spread some of it cold on the toast in lieu of mayo -- delicious like that with the chicken, too.

Michelle, basil is the EASIEST to propagate ~ you can have a huge bed in very little time.

When your plants in the garden are getting old cut them off and cut each 'branch'....strip off the lower leaves and place in a vase/glass of water on the windowsill. In a week they will have a great new set of roots (I usually leave them in the water until they are REALLY full of roots). Then, back to the garden, make a hole with your finger or a stick, drop in your newly rooted basil and watch it grow.

I haven't bought basil in years (plants or seeds).....just keep recycling the one original plant.

The tarragon seeds took off just like my rosemary seeds. When the plant gets 'leggy' I trim off the long stems and hang to dry. When completely dry I put them into a heavy zip bag and start to massage to get the leaves to drop off ~ then, just sift through to get rid of the woody stems and you've got dried tarragon to store in the pantry. Easy Peasy!

Dane usually starts my seeds in small paper cups until they are established, then transplants into their own pot (all of my stuff is in pots as opposed to being in the ground). So it would be super easy for you to get an established 'hedge' of rosemary. It's a year-round grower for your area. My thyme is, also. That's one that just continues to grow larger and larger no matter how much I harvest (it's the one I use the most). And since the one plant lasts so long, that is the one herb I buy as a plant. I bought one when I moved here 4 years ago and this spring finally tossed that one (mainly because the thin plastic pot had deteriorated from the sun and was crumbling) and bought a new one for $3.49....not a huge investment, to be sure!

I have a Texas tarragon plant that tastes almost or as good as French tarragon. I bought one small plant last year and put in an empty bed. When winter arrived most of it went brown. This spring my entire bed is full of tarragon. That plant spreads like crazy, unlike my French. I pulled up most of it to avoid using water but I do keep a small corner of the bed alive.

My French Tarragon in Ohio wintered over, as did my thyme and chives. I thought if I cut the tarragon back to ground level it wouldn't get so large but I think that was an error on my part. Like yours, mine just grew and grew and spread all over the place. But in Ohio space wasn't a problem so I just let it go and enjoyed the fragrance. If you crush a branch the fragrance is almost overwhelming!

Mr. Amazing is smiling!

Grilled burgers, DARK crispy potato chunks and fried corn, beans, onion & bacon. Life is good. LOL