One of my oldest and dearest friends visited yesterday bearing gifts; bags of chocolate mint, basil, laksa leaf, curry leaf, sage, thyme, spearmint and mint. Literally way to much for one family to consume in a 24 hour period (is anyone else finiky about herbs being used asap?)
I set about processing the basil into pesto, taking some nice strong cuttings of the mints for striking and put the solar oven out to heat up. The temperature was only in the low 20's but the oven is certainly paying for itself! It literally dried out the herbs (single layer on a dark tray) within 30 minutes and retained a lot more of the flavour/scent than when i have used a regular oven. The garden just smelled amazing while they were all drying as well.
I checked on the electricity metre again this morning and in the last 48 hours we have consumed 34 units. This is an increase of three units a day compared to the weekday. Once we have the solar panels installed this should decrease our consumption by a third but I do need to work out where our energy leaks are happeing.
Yesterday brought a bounty of another kind; a gift of large garden pots just perfect for the different mint cuttings. I've learned my lesson with mints before :)
1 comment:
2 Responses to “A herbal bounty!”
1.naturewitch Says:
November 15th, 2008 at 9:49 pm e
Yummy! All those fantastic herbs - lucky you!
And well done on the energy usage. I’ll start looking at that once exams are over in a couple of weeks. (Yes, meant to be studying, but am surfing blogs, instead!) xx
2.river Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 5:57 am e
Mint surely does like to roam doesn’t it.
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