Guest “Chef” Emily from The French Hutch!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Hi everyone!

Oh, I have a treat for  you today! Emily at The French Hutch is our featured guest "Chef" today! Emily has created not one but a couple of mouth watering recipes to share with us. Thank you Emily for such wonderful recipes and drool worthy photos!

Click the above picture of Emily’s beautiful French Hutch to go to her blog!

 

ITALIAN BRUSCHETTA ~ WITH FRESH HERBS AND TOMATOES

My post this week will be the Weekly Featured Recipe at DTL Herbs. Please join Diann from The Thrifty Groove and me at her herb blog sharing great recipes using fresh herbs.

Thank You Diann, I am honored  to have my recipe featured at DTL Herbs.

please click here to join Diann at her new blog

BRUSCHETTA

Summer months you will always find in my kitchen fresh herbs from my little herb garden and home grown tomatoes from family or friends. My sweet dad always had these growing in a garden in our back yard so its from these fond memories I love and enjoy preparing any recipe using tomatoes. When my sources run out for suppling me with what I feel is a summer staple, I head to the huge farmers market in Birmingham. I know I'll always find tomatoes and most any herb I need there.
I think I started to go apes over bruschetta after my first trip to Roma.  We have a favorite restaurant where Jim and I always enjoy dining, I always order the bruschetta as an appetizer, from orders by the waiters who always remember us and tell us what to eat, oh those Italians! In Roma, the bruschetta is different than what we found in Florence and the Tuscan hill towns. Roma offers up its version with chopped tomatoes, basil and thicker bread for the oil and vinegar to soak into, where the Tuscan version uses thiner slices of bread and is more of a finger food. Roma serves bruschetta like a salad and you need your fork and knife. I love both, but it can get a little messy eating as finger food. I like serving it as a first course replacing the salad.  Either way, its a summer favorite, a staple you'll find on my menu while the tomatoes are garden fresh and herbs are out of my back yard garden. Ah, the wonderful bounty of summer.

WHAT YOU'LL NEED

~

FRESH CHOPPED BASIL

FRESH CHOPPED ROSEMARY

CLOVE OF GARLIC / OR SWEET ONION

YOUR FAVORITE FRESH OR DRIED HERB

FRESH CHOPPED AND/OR SLICED TOMATOES

FAVORITE OIL AND VINEGAR

FRESH GROUND SEA SALT AND PEPPER

YOUR FAVORITE BAGUETTE BAKERY BREAD

~

BEAUTIFUL GARDEN FRESH HERBS

DRIED IF FRESH IS NOT IN SEASON

DRIED BRUSCHETTA HERBS

PURCHASED IN POSITANO

BLUE BASIL
BLUE CENTER

HOME GROWN TOMATOES

GRILL OR TOAST BREAD

A PRETTY FRENCH ROOSTER PLATE

RUB BREAD WITH GARLIC OR ONION

ADD HERBS TO TOMATOES

~

CHOPPED FOR ROMA BRUSCHETTA

SLICED FOR RUSTIC

TUSCAN BRUSCHETTA

TOP BREAD WITH TOMATOES AND HERBS

POUR OIL OVER TOMATOES

AND ONTO PLATE AROUND BREAD

ADD VINEGAR

ENJOY YOUR FAVORITE BRUSCHETTA

DELICIOUS

POSTCARDS FROM ROMA

GEORGIE, JIM, EMILY AND MOUNIR

BRUSCHETTA AT TUDINI'S IN ROMA

THE REAL DEAL

LEMONCELLO
AFTER DINNER DRINKS

TOMATO, FRESH MOZZARELLA AND BASIL SALAD
JUST ADD YOUR FAVORITE OIL, VINEGAR AND HERBS

 

Really there is no right or wrong way to make bruschetta. I love the two ways presented here, the way I first tried it in Roma. It just doesn't get any better.........CIAO!

Chive Vinegar

Hi everyone!

One of the tastiest and without a doubt, prettiest vinegar to make is chive vinegar! And it is very easy!

You want to pick and use the chive blossoms/flowers. That is what gives it this lovely color and sweet taste!

Isn't that beautiful!

Chive vinegar is such a delicate infused vinegar. You can use plain white vinegar or a milder vinegar like rice wine vinegar.

Once you have a clean jar you want to use, fill it with chive blossoms. Fill your jar at least half way or pack the jar full with blossoms.


Once your jar is filled with chive blossoms, fill to the brim with vinegar. I know that some people boil their vinegar before adding it to the jar.I have never done that.


Now cover tightly and place in a cool dark place for two weeks! One thing to keep in mind, you do NOT want any of the chive blossoms above the vinegar level in your jar. Not that it happens often, but in can grow mold on those blossoms if they are not completely immersed under the vinegar because you are not heat sealing these jars.

What I do to ensure that the chives are under the vinegar is I loosely place plastic wrap over the top of the jar and then screw on the canning rim. I then place a small bowl/glass/cup on top of the plastic to force the blossoms under the vinegar. Tip: place a plate or bowl under just in case it gets spilled.

After two weeks, this is what you have:

Isn't that just the prettiest vinegar!


I hope you enjoyed your visit and have a great day!

We are joining:
Foodie Friday
Weekend Cooking
Fight Back Friday

Mint Planters Coming Soon!

Hi everyone!

Well, our mint as finally large enough to transfer some plants to planters to be sold at the markets.

I am so excited to start using our mint! At this time of the year, I am using them all the time!


Applemint

I will be making up planters with Spearmint, Applemint and Peppermint. Look for them at the markets next week!

And I will be posting some recipes using our different mints very soon!

Have a wonderful day and go check out your local Farmer's Market and enjoy FRESH produce and products being offered!

Attention Foodies!

Hi everyone!

One of the most important goals for this blog is to educate people on herbs. And that includes giving folks ideas of how to use different herbs.

We quickly realized at the Farmer Markets that people want to cook with more herbs but, don’t feel comfortable enough in their knowledge of herbs. Every market we are at, Troy ends up spending a huge amount of his time answering questions and “teaching” people about herbs and their uses.

So, we thought it would be fun to add more recipes using herbs on our DTL Herb blog. And that is where YOU come in! We would love to feature recipes from all you amazing food bloggers and those who just enjoy creating different dishes and blogging about them from time to time.

Our goal is to feature a different blog and that blogger’s recipe using herbs each week. And we need your help! If you write a post with a recipe using herbs and would like to submit if for us to post, we want to know! You don’t need to be an expert on herbs or even a major foodie. We just want the average person out there who is interested in learning and cooking with herbs to have some ideas of recipes.

So, please feel free to email me any of your recipe posts using herbs. We would greatly appreciate it!

Thank you so much!

Now, with all that being said, This is our first post featuring a wonderful blogger, Heather from Life at Willow Cottage. Heather had left a comment on one of our posts over at DTL Herbs and both Troy and I checked out her blog. And what did we see?

These amazing mushroom sandwiches! After we stopped drooling, we immediately contacted Heather and said we want to steal use this recipe on our blog! She graciously gave us permission.

These look so fabulous! and I love the idea of a meatless sandwich. Mushrooms give you that whole meat feel to a sandwich. I can’t wait to try this recipe out!

Here is her post in it’s entirety.

Mushroom (Sandwiches) - Part 2

My darling husband and I are going to to on a special date.  We are going out to sit on the dock all by ourselves.  The kids are getting pizza and a movie while we get some alone time to watch the sun go down and peace and quiet.  I am so excited I gave my toe nails a fresh coat of polish!  It's going to be so fun.
So, for our special date, I am making mushroom and goat cheese sandwiches, grilled asparagus, iced tea and strawberries for dessert.  Hubby is on a mushroom kick which is fine by me.  Today, I am going to show you how to make our favorite mushroom sandwiches.  This sandwich is so good.  It is filling and so full of flavor.  Each bite is a flavor explosion in your mouth.  Love that!
So, the board of ingredients is pretty simple.  I am using these nifty little sandwich rolls that hubby picked up at Costco, but you can use any bread you like.

I dug through the entire cheese chest at the grocery store to find the prettiest label.  Then my son used the log of goat cheese as a drum stick and wrinkled it all up!  (Do you have a teenage son that you sometimes feel like choking?  I do.  He is so lucky that I love him so much!)  Anyway, here's the goat cheese. 

Here is a close up of the bread hubby picked.  

Okay, to get started, slice the roll in half and toast it or grill it.  If you are using regular bread, then just them slap onto the grill or in the toaster.  We love grilled bread, but I was not wasting a moment of our time together on running back and forth from the grill.   

Now to make our goat cheese a little more user friendly.  I am using about two ounces for two big sandwiches. 

I am going to add lots of yummy things to the goat cheese now.  Some finely chopped green onion is so good.  I cut the green onion in half length wise.  Then each half gets cut again length wise.  Then you slice is width wise to get a finely chopped pile of green onion goodness.   

Add the lovely little green onion bits to the goat cheese. 

Next in are some finely chopped herbs.  I am using chives, sage, basil and thyme.  You can use whatever you like or you can skip this step altogether. 

A tiny pinch of salt and a regular sized pinch of pepper go into the bowl as well.

Finally some skim milk goes in.  The milk is going to thin out the goat cheese.  Start with a little bit of milk (about two tablespoons) and mix it in.  Keep adding milk a little bit at a time until you get the consistency you like.  I thin my mixture down to the viscosity of mayo.  Is mayo viscus?  I think it is.

I forgot to take a picture of the mixture.  Opps.  I'll take a picture next time I make it (tomorrow) and add it in.  :-) 
Now, onto the mushrooms.  See that stem in the middle of the mushroom?  We don't really want to eat that.  It can be woody and tough, so we are just going to grab it and rip right out of the mushroom cap or cut it down so that it does not go past the gills.  

Then flip the cap over.  Give it a drizzle of olive oil and massage in some salt and pepper. 

The mushroom will soak up all the oil as well as the flavor from the salt and pepper. 

Flip the mushroom again and give the gills some olive oil, salt and pepper love. Now your ready to cook this baby up. Here is the link for some cooking instructions.

Now, we have some beautifully toasted rolls waiting for some attention. 

I like to spread a thin layer of goat cheese on each half of the roll.  You can go with a thicker layer on one side if you want. 

This is fresh spinach from our garden.  You can add whatever extra topping you would like.  Provolone, a big slice of tomato, a few rings of red onion, regular lettuce...basically anything you would put on a regular burger is good on this sandwich.   

Then we add our juicy, flavorful mushroom.  I added a few sprigs of thyme to the pan while the mushroom was cooking, but you don't have to do that.

Mushroom love on a plate...or cutting board.  I have to run, cause my fella is waiting for me.  Enjoy!

So, lets recap.  Take some goat cheese.  Add some stuff to it that you like.  I have been known to serve this to my children with only a little pepper and salt added in.  Don't worry about getting to fancy.  Thin it all down with milk.  Stir it up.  Spread it on something toasted.  Eat it.  Love it. 

Thank you so much Heather for this wonderful recipe! You can go directly to the post at Heather’s blog by clicking he link above!

Hi everyone!

Although we have several different places we grow herbs for our herb business, we still  have a lot of beautiful healthy herbs right here at home that we use for our personal use.

And those herbs are blooming left and right. This is another thing why we like to plant more herbs than flowers. They are beautiful and bloom but, they are also edible. Double duty plants! Oh, and let’s not forget the amazing smell right after a rain when the sun hits them! Heavenly!!

We have two boxes built in the front of our patio that are filled with wonderful herbs.

Beautiful blooms. What you are looking at is Feverfew (small white snowball looking blooms), cilantro (small lacy white flowers), Yarrow ( little white flowers) and  Borage (purple flowers) on this side. Thankfully when the Cilantro bolted, it gave us a bunch of baby plants that are so tasty!

The other side has lemon balm, Italian parsley (the white flowers), Lemon Verbena and Orange Thyme

In the larger bed that runs about 8 feet along our walkway is blooming French Thyme.

And Lemon Thyme.

Sage. This so needs to be harvested ASAP!

I did manage to harvest one small area of our three areas of chives.

All those at the bottom of this picture are chives. We have the same on the other side.

Definitely looking wild and out of control!

I had time to plop my tush down and harvest and clean out one side.

Half way done with this side.

They are just so sweet.

Yay! all done on that side.

After sitting there cutting all the chives, I plucked out all the bad ones and the weeds.

After a cleaning rinse, I will cut them roughly in half and then just spread them out on the cookie sheet and put them on the dash of one of our trucks. Yup, that is the best way we have found for drying our herbs naturally. We have tried the oven method, the dehydrator method, the hanging in bundles and the paper bag method. We have found this works the very best for us. They will stay in the truck for the next several days. Once dry, they get chopped and stored.

So, this is also my Tip of the week. Even if you grow just a little bit of herbs but, have no idea how to preserve them. Just clip off some, rinse and spread them on a cookie sheet and put in your car to dry. You would not believe how amazing your car smells! Once they are completely dry, just crunch them up and put into a air tight jar. See, it is really no big deal to dry your own herbs!

We add no drying agents or any chemicals what so ever to our herbs. We don’t use any type of chemical  for any reason in growing or harvesting our herbs. Our soil is composted from all natural items. This is absolutely a number one factor in our herb business. Our little Princess has sensitive skin especailly with harsh chemicals and she is one of the main reasons we started this business. She can go out and pluck any herb at any time and eat if she wants. We created a lot of all natural lotions and ointments just for her and now all of us use them. Isn’t that they way things start, out of necessity? 

I hope you enjoyed the little tour with me today. Have a wonderful day!

Composting

I will be doing a presentation on composting at the Wyandotte Farmers Market Thursday July 7, but I wont have nearly enough time to cover everything.

My composting tutorial has appeared on my other blog, but here are some quick links to take you through it step by step.

A step by step tutorial for the beginning composter.

Composting I -What is Compost?

Composting II -Getting Started

Composting III -What to Compost

Composting IV -pH

Composting V - Aerobic vs Anaerobic

Composting VI -Using Compost

Composting Q & A