These are the great flavor boosters of life.  If you're stumped as to how to add some zing to your meals, some brightness or some freshness of flavor.  Any of these herbs are absolute winners!  And here's the brilliant thing, they're almost impossible to kill if you grow them yourself!  Are you a lazy gardener? or even a non-existent one?  Plant a little Thyme or Rosemary or Mint in a pot with enough room for it to spread out a little and then, pretty much ignore it.  Time will pass, you'll forget it exists, winter will come you will be sure the things have gone to meet their relative makers.  Then spring will come, a warm day, a little rain, some sunshine, and the beasts will pop back up unannounced.  Fresh and Green and Vibrant.  You'll snip a little Thyme for a roast chicken, some Rosemary for Roasted potatoes.  I'm telling you, you cannot go wrong.  Flavor, Flavor, Flavor!  And you will have the satisfaction of looking out a window and seeing these beauties overflowing before you and you can say:  "Look what I did!"  Yeah .... Right!

Herb Boosted Salad

The next time you're staring a bowl of boring lettuces in the face, Boost them up by adding some fresh picked herbs to the mix.  A little bit of mint leaf, parsley leaves and dill sprig goes a long way when juxtaposed against a cold bit of Romaine or Green Leaf Lettuce.  It's just a small wake up to your senses.  The scent is fantastic and the flavor is powerful.  With a few vegetables and a small shaving of Parmesan or Pecorino Romano Cheese, all you need is good Olive Oil and Vinegar or Lemon Juice.  The flavor is already in the bowl.  

With regard to spring, the picture below (see Asparagus) is exactly what I mean.  Please wander over to the Facebook Page to get the recipe!

Spring has sprung, well not so much spring as almost full on Summer.  I am looking around to planting.   Where are my Lettuces?  Where are my herbs?  I should have cold crops like Carrots, and Broccoli sprouting now, but the weather seems to have left all those plans behind.

There is a philosophy here in KY, never put out tomatoes until after Derby.  I think Global Warming may have put the KyBosh on all that.

At any rate, spring really kicks my cooking gear into hyperdrive.  All of a sudden I think of vegetables in a way I never did in Wintertime.  Something about the barren winter just makes me become the queen of braises.  But with Spring I think about the freshness of tender lettuces and baby beets.  Tiny baby root vegetables, is there anything sweeter than a baby carrot in a multitude of colors.  Yer right, there is not.  Unless it's a baby lamb eating those same carrots.  Now that's pretty cute.

I think of herbs, just waking up from a long winter's nap.  Chives are the first heralds of spring and nothing is more beautiful than those georgous purple flowers. Did you know Chive Flowers were edible.  They are fantastically garlicky and oniony and all in such a subtle way you won't ruin your breath for your date.  Herbs are the life's blood of spring just when everything is springing up.

If I take a simple salad of baby greens, but then add snips of chive, whole leaves of parsley, fronds of dill and a shaving of parmesan cheese to it, it becomes something that makes my day shine.  I could eat the heck out of that salad.  And if you put it with a beautifully poached piece of fish.  Well ..... you'd better open the wine up and call it a short day.  Cause I'm going to the park with the dog!

Spring is a wonder, a wake up call, a smack in the gob to say... oi!  Get Going!  Breaks Over.  Get out there and eat it up!

Love ya