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?

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.