With the addition of herbs and spices to meatless dishes, you’ll hardly miss the meat. Especially if you are using the freshest ingredients. And what can be more gratifying than growing your own? Today I am going to feature Sage, because as you can see here, it is happily blooming away in my garden. Isn’t it pretty?
Not only is Sage a tasteful addition to your cooking repertoire, but it makes beautiful, fragrant bouquets. Or dry some of your garden-harvest sage leaves and flowers for your next batch of homemade potpourri.
There are SO many ways to use Sage in your cooking, in your decor, and even for personal health and hygiene. According to Wikipedia, Salvia officials is the official botanical name of common garden sage. Both Salvia and Sage come from the Latin salvere (to save). That’s really close to the word savory, too, which is definitely a wonderful, tasty attribute that sage lends to so many dishes.
Sage is probably most often thought of in its dried variety for use in stuffings and sausage. But you can fool your taste buds into the satisfaction of those meat dishes without the meat. Try a bit of sage in your next vegetable dish. But don’t overdo it. A little goes a long ways. It balances out well with other herbs like basil, rosemary, thyme, oregano and mint, too.
Fortunately, when you grow sage yourself, you can take advantage of the many ways to use sage in its fresh stage. I love the smell of the fresh leaves. Try them as an aromatic garnish for salads. Did you know that the flowers are edible as well as beautiful?
You can even toss the stems or leaves onto the hot charcoal of your grill; it will add a wonderful aroma to your grilled veggies (or meat if you can’t bring yourself to go meatless).
Speaking of potpourri and sage in bloom, here is a little lace-edged sachet pouch that we are knitting over at the Bits of Lace knit-along this month. This would also make wonderful gifts for the important “Mom’s” in your life on Mother’s Day.
The pattern is available to Bits of Lace members through April 27, 2012. So get on over to KnitHeartStrings.com now and register for your free membership in Bits of Lace 2012 if you have not already done so. And remember to grab the pattern from the Free Membership Pattern area before it is taken down from the free area to make room for the next pattern.