Add the Herb, Basil, to Your Fresh Veggies Stir Fry

Fresh veggies from the Garden in an easy stir fry.

All of these vegetables, peas, brocolli, Swiss chard (the pinkish color), onion, zucchini, green pepper were grown in our garden. The yellow squash was given to us by our neighbor. Growing the veggies and harvesting them may be the hardest part of the preparation for a stir fry, but chopping them up is very time consuming. My DH chopped all of these for me.

After that, stir fries are so easy once you get the extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) into the pan. No, I don't use a wok. just a large skillet. Experiment a bit on the length of time to cook them. Some individuals like the vegetables warm, but crispy. We like ours cooked more than that, so I add a little tiny bit of water to the pan to steam them after the frying. So I guess I should call the dish a stir-fry-steam. I added fresh basil to this concoction giving it lots of flavor. When using fresh herbs, add them at the end of the cooking time to get the most flavor and you can mix in quite a bit more than when using dried herbs. I also cheat if I want to make it Asian flavored by just shaking on the soy sauce and stirring it into the veggies. It is a lot easier than making up a special sauce using cornstarch, etc. Thanks to Pat for that tip.

We like the stir fry with walnuts or sunflower kernels sprinkled on top. I also love it with brown rice or mixed in with pasta.

Our peas are really producing now. We have been lucky this year with this crop. Do you have any suggestions on how to prepare them? Our grandkids love going in the garden and just biting into the peas right off the vine. They are so sweet and snappy.

Herbs for Flavor, Herbs for Fragrance

Herbs are not veggies, so they may not actually be a topic for a vegetable gardening blog. But after extensive lolling this over in my mind, (about three seconds), I concluded that they ARE edible and should be included in this blog.

That is not to say, however, that herbs have to be grown in the veggie garden. Fragrant herbs are welcome and easily accessible in a pot growing outside the kitchen door. Perhaps you have a meditation area or walkway that would allow interspersing the plants between your shrubs, trees, rock garden.

The most important tip to pass along is definitely planting herbs in a convenient location for you to go and snip the leaves and actually use them in your cooking. After all, the purpose of the herb garden is to have fresh herbs and not those dried up leaves in a can. Make them easily available to assure that you will use them while they are fresh.

There are so many herbs to choose from and so many ways to use them, that I cannot include all of them here. Google "growing herbs" for a ton of information from the Internet. I have included a few that you may like to check out.

Creeping Rosemary--This is a perfect plant for a ground cover and is beautiful in a rock garden. Pale blue flowers from early to mid summer. Easy to grow in sunny locations and hardy to five degrees Fahrenheit. Good for flavoring meats and dressings.

Oregano-for the fragrance. Beautiful plant whose leaves add so much flavor to Mexican and Italian dishes.

Sage--Lots of varieties of sage. Sage Pineapple has a delightful pineapple scent and is a show-stopper with its stunning red tubular flowers which attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Add a few of the red flowers which are edible to your next green salad or fresh fruit salads for an eye-popping dish your guests will love.