Drying Herbs and Future Scone-Plans

Yesterday I took a break from Wesley's sermons to dry some herbs from my mom's garden. It was beautifully sunny and warm, quite a relief after the cold and rain all weekend. I don't really use herbs much in my cooking, but that's partly because I never feel like buying herbs and spices so I usually avoid recipes that involve them. But I thought that since my mom has an abundance of herbs I would try drying some before the first frost.

I went with the freeze-dry method. I of course got directions on the internet. I cut basil, thyme, sage and rosemary, washed them, dried them, and put them in little ziplock baggies. They are currently living in the freezer. I have to wait "several weeks" to see how successful my experiment was. But since there is so much more in the garden I'm going to dry a bunch more and make some pesto on Friday.

My next quasi-domestic endeavor is going to be to try out a recipe I found for the amazingly melt-in-your-mouthy pumpkin scones I tried at Starbucks yesterday. My attempt at the vanilla scones was fairly successful last Christmas. I think I'm going to make both when we go to the beach for Thanksgiving. Both kinds of scones are delicious but having seen the nutritional information I can only justify making them at the holidays (and I almost never get them at Starbucks, although the petite vanilla scones are a good compromise).

I can’t wait to live in my cabin and cook with my home-grown herbs and bake scones. Another possible culinary endeavor: Ina Garten’s rosemary chicken salad served with cheddar-dill scones and herbed butter. Mmm….