Kitchen doings

(after uploading the pictures for this post, I realized there were a lot of pictures of processing herbs and not too much cooking. Oh well, I’m going to post it anyway)

The chef from a restaurant we visit often gave me some fresh thyme he wasn’t going to use. He knows I like to make herbal remedies, so he thought I could use it. Well, I could. I needed to make some new coughing syrup. So I did just that.

The mint cuttings I planted a few weeks ago all died on me, so I started a new round (and that’s how I clean those vases, with a small piece of a scouring pad and a skewer)

Of course I saved the leaves for tea.

Oh, look, I made soup and actually took a picture! This one turned out really nice. It was just eggplant, mushrooms, a red pepper and a yellow pepper, chicken stock and a big scoop of Korean chili sauce.

Dry Oregano di Korsou and dry Passionflower. I don’t think I’m going to dry the passion flower leaves on the vines again. It was a lot of work to get the dried leaves off. Or maybe it was just because they were all tangled up? I meant to hang those vines, but I never got to it.

I need more jars… Yes, I use pickle jars for my herbs. Last year I invested in cuter jars, but all the herbs I stored in those have gone bad over the summer (when we weren’t home), so I’m back to reusing pickle jars.

Breakfast! T.’s eggs came out of the pan real easy this morning. Small victories… (the trick is to get the pan real hot before adding the bacon and the eggs, but I don’t always have the patience for that).

Tea again. I’m trying berbena this week, mostly because, among other things, it’s supposed to help with obstipation (though now I can’t find an online source for that anymore. I guess I need to put a hold on it until I do.)

And preparing soup again (these images are from a longer period). Really, I do cook diner too (soups are lunch in our house). I made the most perfect meatballs last night, but I forgot to take a picture. This is one of my favorite soups: chorizo, onion, leek, sweet potato, corn and chicken stock. I had some cauliflower left over from the day before (ate it with those delicious meatballs), so I added that too.

(Do you want real recipes for meals I mention here? I never use recipes myself, so for me it’s perfectly natural to just list what’s in it, but I could do recipes if you’d be interested. I think I did for a while a long time ago).

Last picture. Processing berbena leaves. This one is funny to me. I was using a blue plastic dishpan to rinse these leaves and I was thinking how some of the people I admire on Youtube always use such beautiful bowls. At first I was like: “yeah, but this is much more practical”. But then I gave it a try and switched to my largest glass bowl. I actually do think I enjoyed that, even though I had to split the batch in two. It seems esthetics are important too…