Try herbs

Want to make your cooking come alive? Try herbs!

Nothing can compare to your own home-grown herbs, and there is nothing more satisfying than stepping out your back door to snip off a few herbs to add to your favourite dish. There's no waste! You only harvest what you need. Ingredients this fresh really make a difference!

One of my favourite herbs is perennial chives. I know, I know - if you have ever grown chives before, you know how notorious they are for spreading rampantly in the garden. But by removing the seed heads before they mature, you can keep them from spreading.

Every year, I harvest a bunch of the striking, round, purple blooms when they are at their peak and put them into a beautiful bottle filled with vinegar. Then, I set the bottle on the window sill. The blooms infuse the vinegar with the unmistakable chive flavour. After a few weeks, I strain the spent blooms out of the vinegar.

This chive vinegar can be used in any recipe that would be enhanced by the addition of chive flavour. I use it most often in salad dressings and marinades. During the summer growing season, I rarely worry about having green onions in the vegetable crisper because I usually use leaves of my chive plants in any and all recipes that call for green onions. They are totally interchangeable.