sel et sucre

Tag: herbs

  • Family Style Summer Salad

    family style summer salad

    Food, I believe, is meant to be shared. Sitting down with family or friends (or ideally both!) over a good meal, home-cooked or otherwise, always fills me with a great feeling of joy and belonging, often reinforced by enthusiastic anecdotes, spirited debates, and unbridled laughter before the end of the meal. This recipe combines my love of good company with my recent love of salads. Perfect for a midsummer get-together, this salad can be thrown together in mere minutes and is easily adapted to the tastes of whoever you happen to be eating with. Use fresh seasonal vegetables from your garden or farmers market, add chicken or steak for extra protein, or make it interactive by inviting everyone to bring their favorite ingredients. By the end of the meal, I hope you’ll feel that lovely glow of an evening well spent.

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  • Homemade Oregano Butter

    homemade oregano butter

    Sometimes I cook for very practical reasons – to stay healthy or save money, or just because I’m hungry. But sometimes I cook simply for fun, to help myself relax and get my mind off my usual worries. At those times, there’s nothing like the feeling of accomplishment at making something especially complicated, unusual, or delicious. Or, as in the case of this homemade butter recipe, making a basic ingredient from scratch. Watching cream transform into butter feels almost magical, and using the resulting spread on bread, fresh veggies, chicken, or steak makes me feel nearly giddy. I’ve been trying to find some good uses for the oregano in my garden, so I added it in here, but you can use any herb (or combination of herbs) you want, or leave out all the seasonings all together (although I recommend keeping the salt – it will help the butter stay good for longer).

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  • Thai Basil Stir Fry

    thai basil stir fry

    Can I tell you what I am most excited about in my garden this year? Thai basil. A sweet basil cultivar used not only in Thai cooking, but also in Vietnamese, Laotian, and Taiwanese cuisine, this variety has dark purple stems and a distinctive anise flavor. Here’s the very first dish I cooked using fresh Thai basil from my garden. A simple vegetable stir fry with zucchini, carrot, and mushrooms, finished off with a fistful of Thai basil leaves and a simple Thai sauce. Garlic, shallots, and bird’s eye chiles (which are quite spicy, by the way, so cut back if you don’t have a very high spice tolerance) help to round out the flavors in this addictive stir fry. This could easily be adapted to whatever vegetables you like, but don’t even think about leaving out or substituting the Thai basil. It can usually be found in large bunches at Asian markets (which is also your best bet for fish sauce and bird’s eye chiles). Once you try this stir fry, don’t be surprised if you find yourself seeking out Thai basil whenever possible and wishing for your very own plant.

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