So true

Winter-fresh herbs

Have you ever noticed how expensive fresh herbs are at the grocery store, especially when you just need a tablespoon or more? Definitely makes you want to grow your own. But even in Central Texas, we can't grow some herbs year-round. So how do you have fresh herbs in the winter?

Freeze them. I'll do this with basil, oregano and thyme and may try it with the sage this year (it didn't need it last year). Rosemary is hearty and will grow all year here, so I let it grow.

To freeze, chop the herbs (for example, basil), like you normally would when using. Place the chopped basil into an ice cube tray and freeze. It doesn't take a lot of water, just enough to cover the basil. Once the cubes are frozen, pop them out of the tray and store in a Ziploc bag marked basil (or thyme or whichever herb). Come winter, when you want fresh basil, just take some cubes out of the freezer and let them melt. Fresh basil from the summer.

Yes we can!

For beginning canners (which is probably anyone under the age of 70), You Can Can is a great book to learn about how to can vegetables, fruit, etc. And let's face it, it's a fun title to say. Canning can seem intimidating, but when you spend a lot of time tending your vegetable garden, you want to make the vegetable last longer than a week. While you can freeze much of your produce, it's usually recommend to use frozen produce within six months.

So far we've just canned tomatoes and pickled vegetables -- cucumbers, okra, jalapenos. Hubby loves to snack on pickled okra and jalapenos, so that's his canning of choice.

There are two basic ways to can -- if the items have high acidity, you just need a big pot (we use a turkey fryer). If it's not acidic, like peaches, you have to have a pressure cooker (this is why so far we've stuck to high acidic vegetables). Actually, we did buy a pressure cooker this winter; while it's not big, we could try to can the non-acidic produce, but so far all haven't grown anything we wanted to pressure cook can.

The great thing about You Can Can is that it takes away a lot of the intimidation and you'll soon find out you CAN can.