Nasturtiums for Dinner

You probably have nasturtiums planted in the flower garden or in containers because of the beauty of the flowers.


It’s also possible that you have them tucked into the vegetable garden because of their reputation as a great companion plant.

Many of us forget that nasturtium is actually an herb and used by many cooks.

Use Nasturtium as Spice and Garnish

The nasturtium is sometimes called Indian Cress and is, in fact, a close cousin of true watercress. Fresh nasturtium leaves can substitute anywhere true watercress is called for. If you like watercress sandwiches, try a nasturtium leaf sandwich instead.

The leaves of the herb will add a slightly peppery taste to salads and soups. Try this great summertime cucumber salad with nasturtiums.

The flowers of the nasturtium can be used as well as the herb leaves. The bright colors of yellow, orange and red brighten a simple dish of applesauce as well as making a festive herbal butter.

Get the Kids Involved

The only part of the nasturtium that can’t be eaten is the seed, which is full of oxalic acid. But don’t let that go to waste because nasturtiums are easy to grow.

Get the kids involved in gardening by giving them a few seeds. Once they stick the herb into a pot of soil or a section of the herb garden, all they need is a bit of water and sunshine. Let the kids gather the tiny leaves and add them to their vegetable to entice them to eat them for a change.

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Herbal Recipes for Holiday Brunch

I hope you don’t plan on making mom do all the cooking for the holiday. Shame. The budget may not allow the whole family to eat out on this special day, but Mom can be pampered in her own home if someone steps up to take on some of the food preparation.

The first step to making Mom feel special is to bring her a nice cup of  herbal tea and make sure she has her feet up. If time permits, have a cup with her and catch up on each others lives. Tell her not to be alarmed at the noises coming out of the kitchen, and assure her that the kitchen will be left as found, or as close as you can manage.

Being the organized person that you are, you’ve already made sure that all the ingredients for the dishes chosen are in place in the kitchen, so get to work.

Herbal Egg Casserole

This easy casserole recipe is for six servings, more if served as part of a buffet,  but any leftovers can easily be reheated. English muffins and wedges of avocado, along with herbed tomato juice, will make it a complete meal.

The nice thing about it is that it can be prepped well ahead of time so that the cook isn’t overwhelmed at the last minute.

Basiled Egg Scramble

Melted cheese and basil turn simple scrambled eggs into a gourmet herbal treat that’s easy to fix. A quick breakfast on their own, these eggs, served with an English muffin and piece of fresh fruit make a nice lunch for 4. Serve with a garden salad and juice for a light dinner.

Cheese and Herb Wedges

These yummy herb and cheese wedges go with eggs as well as they do with hearty stews and soups. A perfect addition to any brunch.

Add to the variety with your own version of pancake or crepes.

Pancake Rollups

Herbed pancakes stuffed with ham are a special treat, whether served as part of a buffet or as a side dish to a light meal. This recipe calls for the herb sage, but you should experiment with other herbs until you discover the perfect crepe batter. Once the batter is perfected, move on to other savory stuffings. Cooked sausage, fruit preserves or whipped herb cheeses are all proven winners in my family.

I simply add freshly chopped herb and cheese to pancake or crepe butter and cook as I would the plain ones. From then on, it’s all experimentation. I’m thinking of offering a choice of stuffing for my next brunch, letting guests choose their own rollup fillings.

Herb Seasoning for Eggs

Make up some packets of egg seasonings to give an extra zing to deviled eggs or egg salad using equal parts of:

Ground celery seed

Onion granules

Dillweed

Store in an airtight container and add to your egg mixture according to taste.

Whipped Garlic Butter

If you’re like me, warm bread and butter is a gourmet treat all on its own. But if you really want to impress people, herbal butters are the way to go. Garlic butter dresses up not only fresh bread, but rice, hot vegetables and grilled steak.

Simply crush 4 small garlic cloves and add them to a cup of softened butter. Beat until you have a fluffy herbal butter. Put in a tightly covered container and refrigerate.

Use the mixture within a week.

Herb Garden Kit for Mother's Day

It’s not too soon to start thinking about Mother's Day, and few mothers would take offense at receiving an herb garden in a planter. You can give a living herb garden, or make up a kit if you have a mom with a green thumb.

There are a lot of attractive herb garden containers to choose from. A plain container in a basket, a personally decorated planter (especially if it can be decorated by grandkids), or my favorite, the strawberry planter, all make good container gardens for herbs.

If you’re making an herb garden kit, be sure to add enough sterile potting soil mix to fill the container. Put it in a plastic baggie and wrap it up in burlap. To make the soil look all earthy and natural, decorate it by tying it off with raffia.

Add packets of quality seeds, and don’t forget a marker for each kind of herb included. Darling markers can be purchased at most dollar stores if you don’t want to make your own.

Add enough gravel to cover the bottom of the planting container. Wrap it up in burlap and tie with raffia like you did with the potting soil. Make sure you mark what it is. Tuck the gravel kit into a small watering can and stick it in the container.

To finish off the herb garden kit, add a soil scoop, snipers, fertilizer and gloves.

If you’re planning to visit mom on Mother’s Day, go ahead and plant the seeds now so you can present mom with a living herb garden as a gift. You might want to make two. Use one for a gift and keep one for your own kitchen. Use it as a quick and easy source for cooking herbs and teas, scented greenery for the window sill, or with a little creativity with plant container decoration, the tiny herb garden will make a beautiful centerpiece for the kitchen table.

Dreams of Spring

The sudden scent of a fresh breeze from the open window mixed with the smell of fabric softener from the laundry room. It was more than I could bear. Deadlines be damned, I left the computer and ventured on to the back patio.

With the dogs content to doze at my feet, I just sat and enjoyed the early afternoon. Even the fat robins seemed happy to sit on the fence and keep me company. The perfect silence of a school day, the warmth of the sun soaking into the joints, the promising green shoots of the early perennials living in the sheltered areas of the yard, all did their best to lull me into a stupor. But my mind couldn’t be stilled.

I can envision the fresh green leaves on the branches that have not even started to bud. I can smell the roses on the cut back canes that are just starting to show a hint of green. The old cement flower pots hold their secrets tightly, not yet offering hints of the annuals or vegetables they will suggest holding when the time is right for planting.

Knowing a blizzard or two is yet to come, I was content to sit in the sun and dream. I saw the hammock that lives under the maple tree in the summer. I could smell the herbs and taste the berries. I think red petunias will look inviting in the wishing well in the corner.

It’s the first week of March. Bits of ice still linger in the shady parts of the yard. More will come. But today was a gift. I’m glad I took advantage of the offering and left the computer to just sit and dream. 

Cinnamon, the Valentines Day Spice

A bedtime snack of toast and hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon can warm you up in more ways than one. It gives a whole new meaning to the innocent phrase red hot, as cinnamon has long been used as an aphrodisiac.


Associated with the God Apollo and the sun, cinnamon is also linked with the element of fire. Love charms and spells depend on the spicy scent of cinnamon and its essential oil. Gift shop scented brooms can be charged to bring love into the household where they are displayed.

Cinnamon is a spice, and not an herb, but is used by herbalists, cooks and witches because of it's beneficial properties.

Cinnamon incense brings a warm feeling on a cold evening, and can increase a mood and as well as a mans’ libido. A cinnamon scented candle in the bedroom will add to the romantic setting.

Because cinnamon goes so well with so many things, it’s easy to use discreetly as a love potion. Set the mood for passion by adding cinnamon and sugar to cider, wine or coffee. Cinnamon goes as well with squash as it does with apples or oranges. And no one will question a little extra in the potpourri.

For those who’d rather attract money than romance, make a bowl of cinnamon clay. Place a few coins in the bowl along with a slip of paper with the amount of money you need written on it. Once you get the money, bury the paper and the coins you used in the yard as repeat the process as the need arises.

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Cheezy Herb Wedges Recipe

On cold blustery winter days I love home made soup. I like to have a big pot of it and I freeze cooled portions in freezer bags so I can have it when I please.

A perfect companion to homemade soup is homemade bread or rolls. But who has the time to bake homemade bread? Luckily, I found this recipe that is based on Bisquick. It doesn't have to rise, so prep time is just minutes, and it bakes up in another 25. By the time you fix a cup of herbal tea and warm up the soup, the whole house smells good and you know it's time to eat.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
grease a round 8" cake pan

In a medium bowl, mix:

• 1 slightly beaten egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup wine (sauterne)

 Add

• 2 t. dried minced onion
• 2 cups Bisquick
• 1 T. sugar
• 1/2 t. dried dill
• 1/2 t. oregano
• 1/2 t. basil

Beat the mixture until blended.
Pour into the greased cake pan.
Sprinkle 1/3 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (I like the extra sharp) over the mixture and bake for about 25 minutes. Serve with butter.

If any of the bread is left over, which I doubt, toast it, cube it and use it in salads.

What are your favorite herbs to add to bread? Do you make herb butter for bread? Please share.

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Replace the Salt in your Food with Herbs

Unless you're planning on selling the bulk of your herb garden harvest, it's always good to know just how to use them in cooking. Although experimenting turns out well for a lot of people, some need advice and recipes if for no other reason than having someone else to blame if a piece of meat is not to everyones liking.

With a little patience and creativity, you can produce herbal blends to complement your dishes so that you can reduce, and even eliminate salt from your cooking. In fact, try substituting a lesser amount of low-sodium herb margarine for butter in popcorn. Use about half a teaspoon each of onion powder, garlic powder, and basil per half cup of diet margarine (for approximately 10 cups of popcorn) and see if anyone notices the lack of salt.

Enhance the flavor of beef with your own blends of scallions, onions, garlic, marjoram, rosemary, oregano, bay leaf, thyme, parsley or basil.

Eggs perk right up with the addition of thyme, tarragon, chives, marjoram, rosemary and basil. The only spice to add is pepper and/or paprika.

Instead of salt, flavor poultry with thyme, sage, marjoram, garlic, basil, tarragon or thyme.

Mint is a favorite herb to add to lamb, but you can also try scallions, garlic, rosemary, thyme, sage or marjoram.

Vegetables also benefit with the addition of herbs. I love mashed potatoes with garlic and potatoes fried with onion. Mint or rosemary will also compliment the spud.

Savory, dill, dry mustard, garlic or onion all go well with green beans. Spritz lemon juice and dry mustard on asparagus, or steam with thyme or marjoram.

Carrots seem to be a vegetable you just can't ruin, no matter what you add, even maple syrup. For a lighter carrot dish, try spearmint and marjoram, thyme or dill.

What's your favorite?

Start your 2010 Herbal Journal

Did you get your seed catalogs? If not, they should be arriving any day. Pull out your graph paper and pencil and start redesigning your herb garden.


As you look through the seed catalogs, gardening magazines and websites take notes and keep them in a 3-ring binder so you have your own herbal journal. You can always add sections for recipes using herbs, an herb wish list, and tips on growing, using and preserving herbs.

Sub divide your sections so you can easily find information herbal cooking, medicinal herbs, herbal beauty products, potpourri recipes, essential oils and decorating with herbs.

Another way the herbal journal will come in handy is to record how well your herbs grew so that next year you can try planting them in a different area of the garden or perhaps purchase the herbs from a different vendor.

Don’t forget a section for thing you might try someday. For instance, if you think you might want to make homemade herbal sachets and pillows for gifts, you might want to keep track of ideas and tips as you find them. Here’s your first tip:

If you plan on making herbal Christmas decorations for next year, get out now and buy Christmas fabrics at a deep discount.

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New Year Indoor Herb Garden

As the holiday ornaments are taken down and put away, fill the empty spaces by starting an indoor herb garden. Attractive, aromatic, and handy, the growing herbs will cozy up your newly barren spaces.


Fresh herbs are preferred to dry by most cooks, and can easily be grown in a container on the window sill or kitchen counter. Herbs can be kept close at hand throughout the year, or transplanted in the garden when the weather permits.

Sage, basil, parsley, chives, and oregano will fit nicely in a strawberry type planter and be an attractive addition to you kitchen. Just snip off what you need as you cook.

The most popular herbs for a kitchen herb garden are spearmint, savory, basil, oregano, sage, dill, parsley and chives. You can start these indoors on the window sill and later move them. As long as you’re planting, add other cooking favorites, like thyme, rosemary, lavender, mint and some scented geranium.

Remember to control your mints by planting them in a metal container to keep them from overtaking you container or kitchen garden.