If you could grow only one herb in your garden next season, what would it be?

My garden is planted with many kinds of herbs, but if I could only grow one it would have to be a good old-fashioned basil plant.

Basil is easy to grow from seed, grows well in container gardens or the garden bed and can be harvested throughout the season.

The basil I grew this year was…

added to green salads
snipped fresh for poaching fish
stuffed with goat cheese and pine nuts
sprinkled onto of veggie dishes
chopped into bruschetta
whirled into pesto
placed on a pizza
made into a blended butter
dried for winter and…
steeped in vodka for this tasty infusion:

Infused Basil Vodka

Ingredients

1 large bunch (or more) fresh basil leaves
1 (one) 750 ml vodka
large jar with lid

Directions

Why buy a jar of pickled jalapenos at the grocery store when you can make a home-made batch with peppers plucked from plants on your patio?

Pickled jalapenos are a favorite food around here and I usually have a store-bought jar at the ready to add to panini sandwiches, to top a pizza or to sprinkle on Mexican food.

But since gardening this year has yielded such a good chile pepper crop, I decided to create my own easy recipe for pickled peppers.

I mixed the recipe for these refrigerator pickled jalapenos by starting with the ingredient list from the back of the jar sitting in the fridge–and then adding my own ideas. I experimented with the quantities until the pickling brine tasted just right.

Before you start, please save yourself some pain and slip on a pair of plastic or rubber gloves to protect your hands and eyes while working with fresh peppers.

Molasses sugar cookies are an old-fashioned favorite.

In December I just can’t stay out of the kitchen. For one thing, it’s warm in there so it makes a perfect refuge for days when the thermometer won’t budge much above zero.

The kitchen is also where I love to pull out old recipes and greet them like long-lost friends.

Molasses Sugar Cookies are John’s favorite cookies and I try to bake at least one batch every holiday season. Ingredients like cloves, ginger and cinnamon combine for a wonderful fragrance that reminds me of an old-fashioned Christmas.

These cookies are easy to make and they bake up crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Because molasses is the key ingredient, these cookies are almost good for you.

Molasses, a sugar derived from sugar cane or sugar beets, gives these cookies their delicious dark brown color and adds a deeper kind of sweetness. The thick brown liquid also contains vitamins and minerals, like iron, calcium and potassium.

Homegrown jalapeño chile peppers and coriander mix with vinegar, ginger, sugars and spices to make a festive gift for the holidays.

The magazines that clutter my desk from October through December are loaded with recipes for cookies, candy and sweet holiday treats that look irresistibly delicious. But I’m always on the lookout for ways I can use goodies from my garden to create savory treats, too.

One of my favorite gifts to grow, make and give is a jar of spicy pickled grapes. The red and green grapes fit the colors of the season and the recipe lets me use some of my garden-grown jalapeño peppers and coriander seeds. It’s an added bonus if you grow your own grapes, too.

Jalapeño chile peppers are easy to grow and are an essential ingredient for flavoring Mexican food dishes and are used to add some heat to Thai and Chinese recipes, too.

The recipe for Stuffed Pumpkin appears in The Vegetarian Epicure cookbook, but my adapted version requires fewer ingredients and skips several steps.

There’s a lot to like about serving a stuffed pumpkin for dinner. Not only is it a simple vegetarian entree, but it’s fun to prepare and there’s no messy casserole dish to wash at the end of the meal.

It also smells heavenly while baking up into something beautifully delicious.

I discovered this recipe in an ancient copy of The Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas and prepared it for a Halloween open house several years ago.

The pumpkin came out of the oven piping hot and I used it as an edible centerpiece for the buffet table.

Not exactly a Martha Stewart moment, but pretty darn close for me.

When I prepared the recipe for the party, I used all of the right ingredients in their precise amounts and followed all of the steps–and there were plenty of them.

These lovely lavender teacakes take advantage of the herb’s sweet old-fashioned scent.

I’m always looking for ways to use the herbs and flowers that grow in my garden and this recipe for teacakes is a perfect combination of lavender buds and dried rose petals.

Reta’s Lavender Teacakes appeared in the April-June 2009 edition of the Pueblo Herb Society’s newsletter called The Thymes.

Reta Zane, a charter member of the herb society, wrote a Featured Herb column about lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) and she included this recipe that uses two ingredients that are especially plentiful in my garden right now.

I baked a batch yesterday and have to say they smelled heavenly while they were baking. The subtle scent of lavender filled the kitchen and I couldn’t wait to taste them.

Not only are they pretty to look at with the lavender and rose petals peeking through, but they’re melt-in-your mouth delicious.

Reta’s Lavender Teacakes

Ingredients