Cooking with Herbs Class (July 2010)

Yes, I am indeed finally finishing up the last of my long lost blog posts. I took this Herb class with Housman Farms last July. I drove out there racing ahead of these nasty storm clouds.

In spite of the weather, there were quite a few of us there. They offered us fresh herbal sun tea and gave us a quick tour of their herbal gardens before the rains came heavily down…

The hosts of the class were Mindy Housman (the farmwife ) and her sister. The rest of the family were all there being amazingly helpful. They were so well prepared and showed us so many great foods that could be made made out of herbs. So fabulous! The plan was that they would educate us about Rosemary, Lemon Balm, Thyme, Dill, Basil, Sage, Chives, Parsley, Oregano, Peppermint and Lavender. Then they were going to prepare around 13 recipes that not only would we get to watch (like on a TV cooking show), but we also would get to taste test too! AND taste them we did!

Mindy and her sister were really just fantastic! The Housman family is amazing. You walk into their home and feel loved, that is all I can say, loved!

Here they are making Peppermint and Lemon Balm Sun Tea.

Lemon Balm and Lavender Iced Tea. Here they are filtering the herbs out before turning it into tea.

Italian Herb Dressing

To go with a yummy salad.

Fresh Cucumber Dill Salad

The preparation for Herbs Chips (Kale is a common one).

Coated with oil and garlic salt.

Here she is preparing cheddar cheese herb biscuits.

Herb pockets. They made a dough and then packed them with herbs and cheese. (fyi, I rarely will ever cheat on my gluten free diet, but those herb pockets were absolutely the perfect time to do it.) They were sooooo good!)

Here they are making fresh basil pesto sauce.

Creamy Dill Cucumbers

They were working on peppermint haystacks. Chocolate and peppermint..perfect mix.

Look at all the yummy food. The only things that I didn’t catch them preparing with pictures is the Herby Chicken Salad, Garlic and Rosemary Lamb Chops,  and the Lavender and Lemon Sugar Cookies. Every single thing was AWESOME. I had the best time there and loved everything about it. Okay, the only thing I wasn’t sure about was the Lavender and Lemon Sugar Cookies. I love lavendar in the air and used on my skin, but in my food, not so much .

After a great night, I headed back towards home. By then the weather had cleared and all that was left was a beautiful sunset…

Thanks Housmans for a great,  great night!

Comments

[Rhonda]

Oh, that was a great post! Sounds like it was a fun evening! Have you used any of the recipes since then? Sounds like you could get some great ideas! Fun!