July 8 Valley Life Column

July 8 Valley Life Column in AG Weekly
Consider herbs for gift-giving

It might seem too early to be thinking about Christmas, but that’s exactly what I’m doing as I work in my herb garden. The lavender is just starting to bloom, the oregano is almost 3 feet tall and the dill fills the air with the smell of pickles.

Busy harvesting my herbs before they go to seed, I know many of the herbs in my garden will make perfect Christmas gifts — lavender wands to tuck under pillows or in with lingerie, herbed butters to spread on warm cornbread, or garlic salt for pasta and popcorn. Who wouldn’t welcome an array of dried organic herbs including oregano, rosemary, basil, sage and fennel tucked in a basket with recipes on how to use them?

My noncaffeine drinking friends enjoy baskets filled with herb teas. Using recipes from some of my herb books, I put together batches of “Crazy Tea,” a blend of catnip, chamomile and strawberry leaves guaranteed to “calm a hysterical nature,” or “Immortality tea,” a combination of lemon balm, rosemary and sage. The sage is supposed to make you wise, and the rosemary is said to strengthen the memory.

Herb teas are easy to make. I like to tie clean herbs with ribbons and allow them to dry naturally as a bunch, then the dried leaves can be stripped and used as needed. Or, I dry the leaves and put them into small packages or decorative canisters. Either way, they make excellent gifts.

Alfalfa, angelica, anise seeds, bergamot, borage, German chamomile, dill, elderflowers, fennel, horehound, lemon balm, lemon geranium, lovage, marigold petals, mints, rosemary, sages, thymes and sweet woodruff can all be used to make teas; the blends are as wild as your imagination.

Another popular gift is herbed vinegar. With no fat and few calories, herbed vinegar makes an excellent salad dressing. Stored in decorative gift bottles, it looks great in the kitchen and makes an attractive gift. A favorite of mine is basil and garlic in white-wine vinegar. I use it in pasta salads, which allows me to reduce the amount of mayonnaise and provides a zesty flavor.

As a general rule, use 1 cup fresh herbs or ½ cup dried herbs to flavor 1 quart of vinegar. Pack 1 to 2 cups of fresh clean basil leaves and up to 3 cloves of garlic into a sterile quart jar, bruising the herbs in the process. Fill the jar with vinegar that has been warmed but not boiled. Use white-wine or cider vinegar for best flavor with a 5 percent acidity level. Cover and let sit for two weeks, then pour into decorative bottles, top with a cork and label.

It may be July, but that doesn’t keep me from singing, “Christmas is coming,” as I tend my herbs. I know from experience that Christmas will be here before I know it.