Our House Projects: 7/17/11

Nothing says fresh, like your own freshly dried herbs!

Use herbs for Tea, Cooking, Baking and soothing scents!

I have two herbs on my back step. Lemon Balm & Mint.

Lemon Balm

I wanted to trim back the herbs (besides the little I step out and pinch off while cooking) and use the herbs. But trimming back a lot would mean I'd be having to cook a feast to use it all. I decided I didn't have that many friends or the urge to cook a huge feast so why not dry them out for future use? Yep. That's what I learned how to do. (& It's so easy!)

First, Pick all the herbs you want to dry out

Sometimes there are some bad leaves in the bunch

Just set all those aside in a pile. We don't want to use bad leaves for tea/cooking

Wash all your herbs.

I used mini clothespins, that I already had, to hang the herbs on a ribbon to dry.
You can also look online at different ways to dry out herbs.
I wanted the most natural, instead of using a dehydrator or oven.
(You lose a lot of the oils in the leaves when using those methods.)

Voila! Let them dry out for a few days. They will feel dried out
and crunch when they are ready to be put into an airtight container!

After a few days...

Make sure your container to keep your herbs is clean and completely dry.
You can get these small jar's that have a rubber seal
for $1 at a craft store like Joanns.