Preserving fresh herbs

Our weather has been so mild this fall that many of my herbs were still growing, particularly dill. The dill from this summer, which had died back, reseeded itself, and I discovered dozens of not so small dill seedlings in the garden. It was a happy discovery, and I've been using it all fall. 

Tonight I fear our mild weather is at an end, because we have a cold advisory and snow forecast. I decided it was time to get out the horse blankets because it would be below freezing. This made me realize that if I wanted to save the herbs in the garden, I should probably do it tonight as well, plus we needed more dill for dinner. So there I was in the dark, using my phone as a flashlight, cutting all the herbs I could find. Here is what I ended up with.

Boy, what a horrible picture! I promise it didn't look this bad on my phone. Anyway, all that on the right is dill, there is sage in the top middle, thyme in the bottom middle, and oregano on the left. Now, I could put it all in my dehydrator and that would be fine, but I actually have a lot of dried herbs on hand, so this would just be adding to them, and I'm not sure it would be worth the effort. But over the summer I discovered a different way to preserve herbs... in salt.

I happened across the idea in my reading one day and decided to try it. I put some Thai basil in a jar, layered with canning salt (sea salt would work, too, just not iodized salt), so salt, basil, salt, basil, etc. About a month later I got the jar out of the refrigerator and took a look at it. It looked like a fresh basil leaf, though with a bit of salt on it. We've used it in cooking, you just need to brush the salt off before you use it and you probably want to hold off on salting what your making until you add the herbs and taste it. If I had the energy, I would go downstairs and retake the picture. (Honestly, my phone is the worst thing in the world and drives me nuts, but because I firmly believe electronics really should last longer than three and half years, I cannot bring myself to get a new one. It's just wrong.) So there, peeking out from behind the black bars which I assure you were not there when I took the picture, you can see a tiny corner of the basil leaf peeking out. That leaf has been in salt for three months now. You'll have to trust me that the rest looks the same.

The other plus is that you also end up with some seasoned salt which you can use in your cooking as you use up the herbs. 

There's my tip for you today, Plus, it's always good to be reminded that everyone should appreciate that I am rarely the sole photographer for this blog. Otherwise you would be stuck with photos of this stunning quality all the time.