Today is my daughter's 18 month birthday and we didn't get off to a good start. It was rainy and dreary outside, but baby girl was itching to go around 8am. Of course, she wanted to walk rather than ride in her stroller, which might have been a possibility except that it was pouring outside. I was also bummed thinking the market might be rained out and all the tasty things I wanted to find wouldn't be there. Thankfully, just as I had wrangled baby girl into the stroller and pulled the rain cover over her, the rain stopped and we made our merry way to the market where, as it turns out, the rain hadn't prevented my darling farmers from setting up their stands.
This time of year is the best in my opinion because winter is truly behind us - a cold day means 60 not 30 degrees - and every week at the market is a new discovery. This week, the herbs were out in full force, all flowery and green. Baby girl immediately grabbed a bunch of chives, she flashed our friends from Bradley Farm the cutest smile and scored us a free bunch. I also picked up some thyme and sage (pictured above) and I had to pin my own arms behind my back to avoid getting bunches of mint and peppermint and basil and on and on.
Also at the market were asparagus, strawberries, baby bok choy, hot house tomatoes, spinach and loads of lettuce. As you may have gathered from last week's post, I'm obsessed with my new salmon recipe. I have some creme fraiche in the fridge so there's tonight's meal, but what am I going to do with the big beautiful bunches of thyme and sage? Any suggestions?
Yay! Fresh herbs! Mark Bittman has a great recipe in one of his Minimalit books (and on markbittman.com) that uses heaps of fresh sage to make a simple pasta. Its one my favorite easy pastas...
ReplyDeletePasta with Butter, Sage, and Parmesan. A classic when made with browned butter, almost as good with olive oil: Heat 4 or more tablespoons butter with 20 or 30 fresh sage leaves over medium heat for about 3 minutes; the butter should brown and the sage sizzle. Toss the cooked pasta with the butter, sage, and Parmesan, thinning the sauce with pasta-cooking liquid if necessary.
Pixie said: I use thyme in tomato sauces, anything Mexican, and in something like a chicken marsala (only I have a wacky recipe that involves shredded carrots, onion, and garlic in oil, almost browned, then browning the chicken in that with Herbes de Provience, thyme and parsley, then adding some wine... mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and spinach... some more wine, then tossing it all with pasta and cooking it together for a few minutes.) But thyme, to me, is best for tomato sauce.
ReplyDeleteCarrie and Vanessa both said:make it into a little packet and put it in your underwear drawer.
ReplyDeleteWell we grow our own herbs so we are never in a situation where we are forced to use an abundance of herbs lest they go bad - in fact that is my primary issue with buying cut herbs - half of them always end up going bad (I just don't have the patience to go hog wild with the certain herbs for 4 consecutive meals!) I would agree with Pixie - use them in a tomato-based sauce / that is the only way you are going to use even a fraction of what you bought (unless they are full plants)...
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