Hi, I'm Heidi Rader. I'm with UAF Cooperative Extension Service and Tanana
Chiefs Conference. I'm here at the Georgeson Botanical Garden at the University
of Alaska Fairbanks. And I'm talking about using herbs and cooking and
storing herbs today. In another video, I talked about all the different kinds of
herbs you can grow here in Alaska and today I'll be talking about how to use
those herbs and how to store those herbs. A couple ones I didn't mention in
another video are marjoram, oregano, and thyme. These ones are used
in a lot of Italian cooking and soups and are great all-purpose type of herb.
The nice thing about growing your own herbs is you can use them as you
need them in everything from soups to salads to baked goods to breads.
It's really a question of what can't you use herbs in. And they're really quite
flexible too. Spices, especially cayenne or red pepper flakes you'll
notice, if you use more than the recipe called for. But herbs are generally
pretty flexible, and you can play around with different flavor combinations that
you like and an experiment. A great time to harvest herbs is in the morning
to promote the most flavor of your herbs before the heat of the day.
So how you want to harvest herbs is you don't want to mow down the entire
plant but you do just want to take cuttings and promote continued leaf
development. So take cuttings from throughout the plant not just one area.
And it's actually good to routinely use your herbs and to use them before
they have gone to flower as then they get a little bit woody
are not quite as flavorful. I'm harvesting some marjoram here. So couple
things, if you wanted to use the herbs right away then you'd want to strip the
herbs from the stems and just use the herbs and you can even use the
flowers. But you don't generally want to use the the stems as they can be pretty
woody and difficult to chew if you wanted to dry these herbs, and it works
well for woody type herbs, to hang them in a bundle and hang them up to dry.
So for things like basil which are more of a tender herb the best way to dry them
is in a dehydrator, or on a screen as they will crumble a little bit if you
make a bundle. But I would just take these herbs, and let's grab a few more
over here, and make a little bundle. You could hang these up to dry like that
you could also just make a bundle for putting in a soup. That's called a
bouquet garni. You could also put it in a little bit of cheesecloth and then pull
out the whole bundle. And then you don't need to worry about stripping off the
leaves off from the stem and you can just take the whole thing out and you've
imparted a lot of the flavor. But another great thing to do is just take the
leaves off the stem and then just chop it and use it in whatever dish
you're planning on. Salad or soup and whatnot. Another thing you can do is chop
or blend or use a food processor and blend up your herbs and then mix them
with oil. So maybe a couple cups of any fresh herb and a half cup of oil that
really helps preserve the flavor and the essential oils as well. And then you
can freeze it you could even put it in an
ice cube tray and then you have an easy way to just use a little bit of herbs at
a time. Another common thing to do with basil especially but you can use a lot
of different types of herbs is to make pesto.
So for pesto you're going to want about 2 cups of packed basil,
you're gonna wet about 1/2 cup pine nuts, 1/2 a cup of parmesan, 3/4 cups of olive
oil, and a couple cloves of garlic. So you would blend all of that up or you
can chop it very finely, which is a little bit more work, but that's what I
have here. Mix it all up together and that makes a really nice sauce for
pasta for pizza, or even sandwiches. And you don't have to use basil,
you can use something like arugula instead of pine nuts, you could use
walnuts, and you can really experiment with the general concept behind pesto
too to preserve your herbs. Another thing you can do is use herbs in tea, either
dried or fresh, so lemon balm is an excellent herb for making a tea. I'll
just harvest a little bit here of lemon balm. It has a really nice lemony flavor and
that makes an excellent tea and so you would just want to chop it. You also
want to bruise your herbs a little bit before you use them and that will
release some of their flavors. Another way you can preserve herbs is if you buy
them from the farmers market or the store, you can simply put them in a vase
of water with the stems down. Much like you would a bouquet of flowers and that
will really enhance how long the the herbs keep
as well. Of course if you have your own herb garden you don't really need to
harvest them in advance of when you're cooking them, so you don't really
need to do that. But especially if you buy them from the farmers market just
put it in a vase like you would a bouquet of flowers. Another great way to
preserve herbs and nice way to use them is by adding adding them to vinegar. So
you want a sterile jar, and you can use any type of herbs that you think would
taste good. This is basil and marjoram and you want
to just pack the jar and with your fresh herbs. Bruise them a little bit,
then add vinegar to it. You don't need to heat up the vinegar, but you can heat up
the vinegar if you want your vinegar to be flavored more quickly. So
pack in your herbs, this purple basil is going to turn the vinegar a nice crimson
color and you know let it sit for two or three days, and then you'll have a nice,
flavorful vinegar that will keep for quite a long time. Good types of vinegars
to use are rice vinegar or white wine vinegar. You don't want to use apple
cider vinegar, for instance, because the flavor is so strong you probably will
not taste the herbs as well. So those are different ways to store and preserve and
use herbs from your Alaskan garden. Oh and one more thing, I want to show you.
UAF Cooperative Extension Service has a great book. It's called An Alaskan Herb
Garden. It's all about which herbs you can grow here in Alaska,
how to cook with them, how to preserve them. So pick that up at our website for
$15 and check back weekly for more
videos here In the Alaska Garden. I'm Heidi Rader here with Cooperative
Extension Service and Tanana Chiefs Conference. Thanks for listening.