Using Mint:Persian Salad with Cucumbers and Mint

There isn't any fresh mint in my Sunny Garden, in which I have been spending time photographing the herbs. Mint is in my Shady garden, and I'll put a photo here.. But don't wait for that to try the salad. 'Tis the second day of August and it promises to be sufficiently hot to qualify as an August day. Cucumbers, hitting the market, can be paired with yoghurt and mint for a refreshing salad. Grill salmon to pair with this salad, add a baguette, and slice saa fresh tomato for color balance.

Ingredients: Three medium sized cucumbers, peeled, split lengthwise, seeded and cubed.(You can use a spoon to scrape the "bowl" of the cucumber to remove the seeds.)

Six scallions, white areas, minced.

Mint (peppermint preferred, although any variety will do, even horsemint. Spearmintgives a sweet flavor,

One cup of yoghurt

This salad is a simple assemblage of ingredients. Add mint, scallions to diced cucumber and then stir in the yoghurt, Refrigerate, part of the strength of the salad is its "coolth."It is best served after combining ingredients and refrigerating for about an hour.

It keeps for two days ---stir the entire salad to redistribute the yoghurt. The salad works well with chicken glazed with honey and mustard.

Thanks to Dayush M., who, many years ago, while a graduate student at U.of Penn, gave me this recipe. He and another student, Vijay, had cooking competitions in which I got involved by peeling onions and learning their recipes.
DISCLAIMER:

The statements made here have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These statements are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure or prevent any disease. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Recipe: Lemon-Basil Drink

This recipe from Marty Steeil, and was used at the Herbal Iced Tea Workshop. This is perfect for today, which is blistering hot, up to 100 degrees and more.
Perhaps a section on Herbed Iced Beverages will show up here in August.This is the first, albeat it in July:

Marty's words: "I made the lemonade with a very simple recipe:

a. Buy a 2 liter bottle of lemonade
b. Put a half ounce of basil into a blender and half the lemonade
c. Blend on high for 1 minute and pour into a container
d. Repeat with the rest of the lemonade and another half ounce of basil. Pour the rest into the container.
e. Put the container into the frig and everytime you open the frig for the next 24 hours shake the container
f. After 24 hours strain the mixture through cheese cloth or a very small holed strainer (get out all the green).

It is best served ice cold. It tastes great alone. It also makes a great base for adult drinks.

Enjoy!"
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The next Herb Workshop will be in late August or early September, stay tuned for the exact date. It will be on on Harvesting and Preserving Herbs. The time is 9:30 to 11:30 AM on the Greenhouse Lawn, at the end of Lindbergh Blvd. We are going to feature a tour of Greenhouse Gardens, with gardners there to discuss their practice. The demonstrations of herb preserving methods will be centered on herbs for That Summer Taste All Year Long.
DISCLAIMER:

The statements made here have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. These statements are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure or prevent any disease. This notice is required by the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

A Five-Herb Pocket Garden

--- Find a spot that gets sun at least six hours a day.

--- Make your plot fit the area----about a 4 feet square area is enough for a pocket herb garden.

---Sow parsley in late March. Add dill, cilantro, oregano. Sow basil last (mid-June).

---Allow for growth --find out the size of the mature plant.

---- Water regularly and make sure the plot stays weeded.

---Harvest when there is enough of the herb that some will still grow, Snip the tips of large leaves for the flavor. Remove stems (they are usually bitter) from oregano and use the leaves from cilantro and dill.
---Rinse and pat dry; use in recipes for that fresh herb taste.

---Basil will grow large over the summer; pinch off the flowers to keep the plant growing;cilantro and dill should be sown again as cool weather approaches.

--Parsley will return for another year; oregano is a perennial, and as the season ends, so does the basil.


Have a partially shady area? Try Parsley, Chives, Lemon Verbena, Mint, and Sage.
A surprise addition is Breton Shiso. I grew seven Shiso plants this summer in my pocket garden under the trees. They had coloring of purples underleaf, dark chartreause on the upper leaf. I transplanted two of them to full sun, and each grew vigorously. I compared them to the five in the pocket garden, and the height is not appreciably different.

Herbs: How They Grow, Where and How to Plant Them and More

Herb Society of America. Everything, from “this year’s herb” (Horseradish) to guides for the 400 public herb gardens in America.
www.herbsocietyof America.orgHerb Companion. Recipes and practicalities.
http://www.herbcompanion.com

Information About Herbs, Botanicals and Other Products Sloan Kettering site: http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/58481.cfm. See how healing the herb actually has proven to be in research.


Two Sages: Common and Tricolored

Herb Gardening, Recipes & Design Books

Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs.
Claire Kowalchik & Willian H. Hylton (Eds.).Classic (any edition.)
Check each herb you want to try.


For a formal herb description, use Tucker and DeBaggio’s Encyclopedia of Herbs: A Comprehensive Reference to Herbs of Flavor and Scent.

Herbal Teas for Lifelong Health. Kathleen Brown. (A Storey County Wisdom Bulletin.)This small book packs methods of preparation, recipes and notes about healing herbal teas. Adapt the recipes for iced teas.

Homegrown Herbs. Tammi Hartung. Has the single best set of charts on conditions for each herb’s propagation and use.

The Story of Tea. Mary Lou Heiss. Largely focused on the vast array of Oriental teas and the judgment of "what is a good tea".

Your Backyard Herb Companion. Miranda Smith. The emphasis is on manageable and beautiful spaces for 100 herbs. The pocket size space plans fit Teaneck well

Teas: Where to Find Them

Garden States House of Tea lists the teahouses in the state. A number of them serve and sell loose herbal teas. http://www.teaguide.net/tearoomsnewjersey.htm

Oradell: Cool Beans.ns. About 30 varieties (Including lavender).

Whole Foods, Paramus and Edgewater: has loose teas, notably mint.

Fort Lee: Kudo Beans: Wide array of herbal teas in tins.

Ever Notice the Noxious Names of Weeds?

This is not a weed, although the name Wormwood puts it with them. This is an herb with a dubious reputation, having been used for making absinthe. In the past, it was used as a strong purgative, and brought on body convulsions.In the picture, Artemis absinthus is in flower. I planted a number of them for decorative foliage,for which it is used now.

But look at the common weeds we try to keep out of gardens.
Look at their names :
Redwood Pigweed,
Nodding Beggar-ticks,
Great Ragweed,
Canada Fleabane,
Marsh Cudweed,
Poverty Weed,
Sticky Groundsel,
Puncture Vine...
Hardly attractive as names.
Not all are evocative of the worst, but most are!


Take some time with a weed identifier book.With one you can read the ugly names in two languages:
Royer, France and Richard Dickenson. Weeds in the Northern U.S. and in Canada (1999).Foreword by Shafeek Ali, Provincial Weed specialist (Bet that's a job title you haven't seen.)Alberta, CA: Lone Pine Publications.

One of the very best documentation parts of the book is the listing for each weed its dangers for livestock, humans, waterways, as well as a picture of the plant as seed, seedling, and grown plant. This book shows the waterways endangered by the Cattail (not the reverse(.


The Rutgers University Agricutural Dept.has a weed identification database:Online Weed Gallery:http:// njaes.rutgers.edu/
weeds/


Use the identifier, but more important---get rid of them. Read Ray Edel's recent column to see how.Although this cattail is not as ugly sounding a name as other weeds, it is a USDA -recognized weed, clogging many canals in Florida.Cattails: Great Swamp near Gillette, NJ,



---Urban Herban