Home Sweet Home #67

Hello and welcome to Home Sweet Home!  Today I am going to show you around my little herb garden.  I have always enjoyed cooking with fresh herbs.  I have had a garden right out the back door for a long time; but, four years ago we remodeled and it was destroyed.  Just this year it is finally getting back to having a good variety of herbs in it for cooking.

These are the top 7 herbs I use the most.  You could choose any 7 but, these fit in with the foods I cook most often and I will tell you why.  

Rosemary has needlelike leaves and a piney scent.  Best used with meats and especially when grilled.  May also be used with mushrooms, roasted potatoes, stuffing, olive oil, and on breads.  One of my favorite recipes to use rosemary in is Butternut Bisque.

Thyme has tiny leaves and a minty, tealike flavor.  There are many varieties such as lemon, orange, English, and French thyme.  It is a essential herb of bouquet garni.  It is excellent with fish, shellfish, poultry, mushrooms, potatoes, and summer squash.  My favorite recipe with it is Thyme-Sauteed Pork Chops.

Parsley is crisp and has a faint celery flavor.  The two varieties are Italian flat leaf and curly, pictured here is the Italian flat leaf, it has a stronger flavor.  Curly parsley is most often used for a garnish.  Flat leaf works well in soups, stock, cream and tomato sauces, salads, dressings, in pesto; as well as with poultry, meat, fish, shellfish, dried beans, and vegetables.  My favorite recipe to use Italian parsley in is Lasagne.

Basil has a sweet clovelike taste.  The varieties include sweet basil, small-leaved bush basil, lemon basil, and opal basil, which has a gingerlike taste.  Fresh leaves are best torn and cut then pounded to release the flavor.  The leaves on the top of the plant are the sweetest.  It is an essential herb for Italian cooking, most often used in eggs, tomatoes, pasta, chicken, fish, and shellfish.  This basil just came out of a 4-inch pot and will reach a height of over two feet in my garden this year.  One of my favorite recipes to use basil in is Spaghetti with a tomato and fresh basil sauce.

Mint is refreshing and cool to taste.  The peppermint plant produces the oil they use in candy and gum.  There are more than 30 varieties of mint, best known is the peppermint and spearmint.  Lemon, orange, and apple mint have distinctive fruit tastes.  Used in yogurt, salads, peas, beans, corn, and potatoes; also in jellies, fruit salads, desserts, and in iced tea.  My favorite way to use mint is as a garnish with fruit or tea like I did here. 

Dill has a delicate caraway taste.  Dill should be fresh and just added before serving.  It is used for pickles, eggs, fresh cheeses, yogurt, seafood, chicken, cucumber, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and beets.  Two of my favorite recipes for using dill are Chicken Noodle Soup and  Pecan Chicken Salad.

Sage has a powerful flavor, it is musky and slightly mentholated in flavor.  It aids in digestion when mixed with fatty foods.  Most know for it's use in poultry stuffing at the Thanksgiving table.  It is also good in chicken, duck, goose, pork, sausages, cheese, eggplant, and dried beans, soups, and stews.  I use this in my meatloaf and, I  have used it in Herbs de Provence.

Okay, if you were counting that was seven, but I can't really quit talking about herbs so, I will show you one flower that is considered an herb that you can cook with.  Lavender, can also be used; as I did here, in this recipe for herbs de Provence .  Or, if you grow enough you can fill sachets with them like here.  Herbs cost about $3 per 4-inch pot and many of them are perennial and will come back year after year.  They are also very hardy and easy to grow, that makes having a few fresh herbs around an easy way to cook fresh for summer.

Now I would like to highlight some of the posts that caught my eye last week at Home Sweet Home.

Gayle at Behind the Gate had a fantastic post for Mother's Day called Mothering Love.

Lynn at Shabby Story showed off a lacy potting table!  Do we need to say more!  Gorgeous!

Courtney at French Country Cottage showed off her lilacs in her bicycle basket.  Too beautiful for words!

Mary Ann at Classic Casual Home showed off her spring to summer look in her living room.  Loved it! 

Thank you to all who join me at Home Sweet Home!   It is wonderful to have you here!  There were a lot of great posts last week, makes it hard to pick a few.

Sherry

I will join these ladies today:
Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground 

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Show and Tell Friday at My Romantic Home

Home and Garden Thursday  at A Delightsome Life 
Creative Things Thursday  at The Vintage Farmhouse
Cottage Garden Party  at Fishtail Cottage
Say G'day Saturday  at Natasha in Oz

 Guidelines for Home Sweet Home Party:

Attention: To link up with inlinkz you must have a permalink back to this party in your post or they will not allow you to link.  

Link up anything in your home or garden.  I love seeing neat shops too!

My button is on my sidebar for the party, if you want to use it.   If you are new here I hope you will become a follower. Please don't link up more than two posts.  No Etsy link ups or direct advertising, please.  Please visit some of the other blogs and get some great inspiration.  Thanks.:)

Now let's see your beautiful homes!

Making Rose Sugar

Roses aren't usually the first thing you think of to bring in from the garden to the kitchen.  But, roses can be used for a variety of culinary purposes.  One way to use roses in your cooking is to make rose flavored sugar.  It is made exactly the same way you make vanilla scented sugar.

There are two methods to make the sugar.  I will show you this method first. (source: Mad About Herbs)

Ingredients:

1 cup of fresh organic fragrant rose petals

3/4- 1 cup of white sugar

• I first chopped the white end off of the rose petal.   This part of the petal tends to taste bitter so I removed it.

• Next, I finely chopped the rose petals up.

• Next you need to place some sugar in a mortar and mix by pounding the petals into the sugar.

• If you want to serve the sugar with this gorgeous pink color you must serve it now freshly mixed.  It has the most fragrant smell just like the roses.
• After mixing place in an airtight glass jar for storage.

• The reason I tell you to serve it fresh is because the color turns brown overnight.  I made this last night and today when I saw it had browned I was disappointed.  It also smells more fruity. 

The other way to make rose sugar I found in The Herb Companion.  

• Take a clean pint jar with a tight fitting lid.   Fill the jar about 1/3 full with sugar, scatter a small handful of very fragrant rose petals over the sugar.
• Cover the petals with sugar so the jar is 2/3 full; add another small handful of rose petals and cover with sugar to fill the jar, leaving about 1/2 inch headspace.
• Shake the jar and place on a shelf in a cool dark place.  The sugar will be ready to use in 2 to 3 weeks and will become more flavorful with age.  As, the sugar is used, add more plain sugar, which will take on the fragrance in the jar.

Uses for rose flavored sugar:

1. Stirred into coffee or tea
2. Use instead of plain sugar when baking cakes, scones etc.
3. Sprinkle onto desserts, cakes, cookies, muffins
4. Use to make syrups or add to the rim of cocktail glasses

Note*  If you use this method, you can mix your white sugar with a pink sanding sugar and get the beautiful pale pink sugar.  

 Enjoy!

Sherry

I will link this to: 

Wow Us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Friday Food at Mom Trends

Foodie Friday at Designs by Gollum
What's It Wednesday   at Ivy and Elephants  
Thriving on Thursdays  at Domesblissity
On the Menu Monday at Stonegable 
Rooted in Thyme Simple and Sweet Fridays

The Joy of Gardening

source: scanned image from Victoria April 1995

In observance of Earth Day I am doing an ode to gardening.  I fondly remembered the old Victoria magazine's features on gardening and decided to dig them out and see what images I could come up with.  I have tore out these features and long since thrown the magazines away.  If I knew the the date of the feature I have posted it here as the source, otherwise I don't know the date.

 source: scanned image from Victoria magazine

This was from the magazine and it was also the cover of the magazine.  If ever I get to visit England I would love to see a cottage like this.  Isn't this rose bush magnificent!

source scanned image from Victoria magazine

Victoria magazine often took us to England.  Here we get a bird's eye view of a spectacular manor house walled garden.

source: scanned image Victoria magazine

This image is one of the inspirations for my own kitchen garden.  Here is a herb garden right out the kitchen door at another manor house.

source: scanned image Victoria magazine

Always enchanted by a path in a garden.

source: image scanned from Victoria magazine Jan. '91

Victoria did many features on white long before I ever remember anyone else showing it.  Here they featured an all white garden.

source: image scanned from Victoria magazine Jan. '91

 The white garden at night becomes a magical place as a moonlit garden.

 Now, here in my own yard the plants have been spilling over the walk and the flower border with abandon. 

 I just this year have a rose garden.  You don't have to spend a lot of money to have roses.  I picked these roses up at Walmart last year.  I would get a rose every week with the groceries.  They only cost around $4 and some change a piece.

I have four rose bushes and they have really been beautiful this week.

Right out the back door in a shrub a mother robin has taken up residence to raise her young.  Not wanting to disturb the nest, I stuck the camera above my head and aimed and caught a peak at the beautiful eggs.

Much to my 7 year-old's delight a tree frog has decided to live in the pipe of his swing set. 

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein 

Sherry

  I will join: 

Show off Your Cottage Monday  at The House in the Roses  

Seasonal Sundays  at The Tablescaper
Say G'Day Saturday  at Natasha in Oz

A Return to Loveliness  at A Delightsome Life

Your Cozy Home Party  at Cozy Home Scenes

Tea-Dying Fabric

Tea-dying fabric is really easy way to give fabric a vintage look.  You don't need a lot of supplies to master this.  
 What You Will Need:
6-quart stainless-steel pot (I used for this project, it was small)
*Note- use a 12-quart or larger stainless-steel pot if you dye yardage
1 1/2 gallons of tap water
your fabric ( I dyed 5 of these sachets)
3 black tea bags
*Note- to dye yardage use 6-7 black tea bags
Stainless-steel tongs
mild detergent

I first, put about a gallon of water on the stove in my pot to boil.
Meanwhile, I filled my sink with cold water and soaked the fabric with cold water.  The fabric will take the dye more evenly if wet.
When the water is boiling I put in the tea.  I boiled that for 10 minutes.  You can boil it for up to 30 minutes to an hour.  The longer you boil it the darker the tea.  My tea is extremely strong and it was dark enough in 10 minutes.

I took my fabric and wrung it out and then added it to the pot of tea.  Turn the heat off and allow your fabric to steep for as long as needed to achieve the desired color in your fabric.  It can steep for several hours and even overnight if needed.  My fabric was again ready in about 10 minutes.  Stir occasionally and check the fabric color.  *Note -fabric will appear darker when wet.  
When finished take your fabric out of the water with tongs and rinse under cold water till the water runs clear.  Then wash your fabric with a mild detergent.  Rinse and drip dry. 

*Note- before dying it is always best to dye a test swatch and keep record of steeping times to give you the desired results.

Here are my results.  The tea-dyed fabric is on the left and the normal fabric is on the right.

In this picture also the tea-dyed fabric is on the left and the normal fabric is on the right.

I am filling these up with some very fragrant lavender and making sachets.  They are now for sell in my Etsy shop.  

Sherry

I will link it to:
Masterpiece Monday at Boogieboard Cottage
Amaze Me Monday  at Dittle Dattle
Metamorphosis Monday  at Between Naps on the Porch

Foreign Influences

Now before you get the wrong idea and think this is a sensational post.  I will be the first to tell you it is about gardening. (Photo intensive post.) The one thing that fascinates me completely about blogging is that I can sit down cozy here at my computer and scan dozen of images daily of decor and gardening from around the world.  I am an extremely visual person so it is the perfect format.  (Magazines don't want to hear that.)   I often stumble upon blogs from other countries that just stop me in my tracks.  I am so taken with how they are doing something so very different from what I see here in our magazines and retail stores.  So often the materials used for these stunning arrangements are from right out of the yard.  So what can I not love about this, they are doing something different (and you know how I like something completely different) and it is usually inexpensive!  The first blog that literally took my breath away was Blomsterverkstad.  This is the blog of Minna Mercke Schmidt she is a Swedish flower
photographer and stylist.  She has been published, her book is "Blomstrande ide'er.  I will leave you with the visual images of her work.  You don't even have to have a translate button on her blog.

All images above from   http://blomsterverkstad.blogspot.com/

Isn't her work amazing?

Okay, I found these images and I have a bad habit of saving the photo and forgetting where I saw it if it is a commercial website.  I believe this website was French and it sold herbs, of all things.  Great table ideas.

 The entire reason for this post was that, again, I stumbled across another foreign blog that I thought had some beautiful natural centerpieces.  I thought okay, Christmas is coming most of these materials we have in our yards and I thought you might get some inspiration for your decorating.  This site is called "The Forest Fairy," I believe this is a German site.

  These images are from http://die-waldfee.blogspot.com/

So now I am really inspired I want to go create something different from anything I have ever created.  Here is my translation of the lantern above.  

I will work on it.  I took many pictures of this and I am still not sure it looks as natural as the lantern above from The Forest Fairy.  I love using natural materials and I love something completely different.  The before on this would be moss, moss rocks (HobbyLobby), cinnamon sticks, anise (grocery), twigs, pinecones, pine boughs (neighborhood yards).  If you are concerned about the natural materials with the candle you can use the battery operated flameless pillars.  

I will link to these great blogs.  Go and visit them.
Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative
Tabletop Tuesday  at A Stroll Thru Life
Centerpiece Wednesdays at The Style Sisters

Before and After Party at Savvy Southern Style

Make It yours Day  at My Backyard Eden

I will join Joni at Red Couch Recipes for the Thanksgiving Challenge.  I will put at the end of every post till Thanksgiving what I am thankful for.  I am thankful for the world of blogging.  Creativity abounds and it is a wonderful thing!:)