Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The best way to save herbs for use later

Herb MillSo, as loyal readers of this blog know, I'm often caught in a situation where I need to use up a lot of herbs at once or throw them out. This usually means I end up making dishes that use tons and tons of herbs, like basil pesto or the basil Thai stir fry of the last post. And wait'll you see what happened with the mint leaves I chop chop chopped from the herb Aerogarden!

So, I get an email today from Aerogrow announcing their new Herb Mill. This is a dream come true for me. It looks a lot like their
Herb 'n Serve
, which allows you to mix up herbs with olive oil to make dressing (works well, but there's only so much dressing you can make). I've also tried their Herb 'n Ice Silicone Freezer Trays, but wasn't too impressed with the results--the frozen ice cubes eventually dried out to the point where the herbs weren't very useful. The Herb 'n Save was a good idea, but only keeps herbs fresh for a few days--I'd rather just keep them growing on the Aerogarden if that's the case. So I tried them all. It feels like the only product I didn't try was the "Herb 'N' Cowboy" (sorry, I had to say it).

But like I said, this product seems promising. You put your extra herbs in the chamber, chop them, and freeze them on the spot. Then, when you're ready to use them, you just sprinkle on what you need. Seems that they'd be a nice alternative to dry herbs (face it--that bottle of oregano that's been sitting in the cupboard for 10 years has had it).

Good job by Aerogarden to continue to innovate in ways to "pres-herb" your hard work (okay, no more bad puns, I promise).

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