Hello friends and followers!
Sorry I’ve been out of pocket for a couple of days.
We took a quick ‘end of summer’ vacation to the gulf. It was fabulous.
Now I’m refreshed and I’m back at it and have a great cooking tip for you guys!
Problem:
Have you ever bought an ingredient for a recipe, used a little, and then thought, “well now what do I do with the rest of this?”
Maybe it was that parsley you needed just a tablespoon of or that herb that grows like a weed in your garden ( this would be me and mint! Out of control).
Well, folks I have a solution.
Unfortunately I didn’t invent this and I can’t even remember where I found this idea. I’m sure it was Pinterest, as the recipes are in abundance.
But it is nothing shy of genius.
Solution:
Tonight, I made this Thai flatbreads ( delicious and easy, btw) and it called for cilantro.
Here’s the delicious finished dinner product:
Don’t you want to come over? 😉 BYOB!
Anyway, back to cilantro….
It’s definitely not one of my favorite herbs.
But, none the less, I bought a ‘bunch’ of cilantro.
A bunch. All I need is a couple of tablespoons? Why do I have to buy a whole bunch? Ugh!
So, after I cut up what I needed for my recipe, I washed the rest; took the leaves off the stalks; and put them in an ice cube try, topping each cube with a little bit of water.
I put it in the freezer to freeze ( bet you saw that coming) and when frozen, I’ll pop them out of the tray and put in a freezer ziplock bag, labeled of course (because we don’t want unknown objects in the freezer). Then, in my next recipe that calls for cilantro, I’ll just use a frozen cube.
Genius!
Here’s an illustration of the process, for you visual peeps:
Now, I doubt using frozen herbs would work very well when you need that ‘fresh herb effect’ maybe to top off a salad or recipe.
But for those recipes that require herbs in sauces, soups, stews, meats, etc. …it will be perfect!!
I sort of touched on freezing leftover pumpkin in my last post. That works wonderfully. Avocado works great too ( who knew?!?).
Here’s what a finished product looks like (my homemade pesto).
Freezing really works good for pesto, as it allows you to portion control what you need and freeze the rest.
You can use the frozen cubes all year long for pastas and such. It’s an awesome way to use up all that basil that can grow super fast in your garden.
This weekend I’ll be doing this for the mint in my garden ( which is fabulous in smoothies, salads, and homemade mojitos- of course!). FYI- mint grows great in humid climates (aka, here!).
How would use this easy diy?
Give it a try and tell me how it works for you.
My own best self 