The following is a guest post from Aunt B. of Tiny Cat Pants. Guest posting is a new feature here at the Home-Ec 101 community and I hope that all of you are welcoming to those who have volunteered their time and energy with their contributions. I am deeply grateful.
Aunt B says:
So, I’ve been thinking, trying to come up with the one bit of household wisdom I would impart on y’all. What have I done around the house that was easy enough that most everyone can do it and has made my life a little nicer?
Plant rosemary.
If you don’t have any place outside, you can grow it in a pot in a window. Just resist the temptation to over-water it. But if you do have space outside, the wonderful thing about rosemary is that, as long as it gets sunlight, it can grow just about anywhere. And it’s a perennial, so it will grow anywhere for a long time.
I grew it right outside my front door at my duplex, in a bed filled with construction debris and Tennessee clay. I just mixed in some good potting soil I had for my houseplants first. Now I’ve got it growing right next to the front steps at my house and let me tell you, it doesn’t get watered other than the rain and I just pull the weeds that are growing in it out when I think to. And it is thriving. The more you just let it be, the happier it is.
So, you have the satisfaction of growing something that smells good, even if you don’t have much gardening talent, and you now have on-hand a great and versatile fresh herb. Whenever you want some, you just go out with your kitchen shears and cut off what you need.
If you want to make kabobs, cut some of the woodier growth and use that as your skewers. Any meat you would pair with a red wine will be complimented nicely by rosemary. Shoot, do you have a boring chicken breast? Throw some rosemary into the pan with it while it cooks (if you are in the habit of cooking chicken breasts or tenders on a Foreman grill, believe me, throwing a sprig of rosemary on top of each piece will infuse it with flavor in a way that makes it a whole new beast).
And that’s just throwing it in with some stuff. You’ll also have it on-hand whenever a recipe calls for it. Or whenever you just want to go run your hands through it so that you smell great all day.
Betsy Phillips blogs at Tiny Cat Pants as “Aunt B.” and at Pith in the Wind under her given name. She also has a monstrous garden that has taken over a third of her back yard. She regularly goes out and cusses at it, but that has not helped rein it in.
[...] I almost forgot Posted on September 1, 2009 by Aunt B. I posted about rosemary over on Home Ec [...]