My Favourite, Our Favourite ......

 

My favourite herb of all time, for it's scent, for it's taste and for the look of it growing so majestically is Rosemary.  I love the stuff, in fact I find it very hard to visit a garden centre or nursery or any place that sells plants and not buy one.  I stroke them as I walk around and then enjoy the scent all the way home in the car, it's a good job I use so much of the stuff in my cooking :-)

 

And I use it most often in our favourite meal, Mediterranean Vegetables.

 

 

Start with a sprig or two of Rosemary in the bottom of your ovenproof dish, and in a jug mix couple of tablespoons of Olive Oil with some freshly ground Black Pepper, some Garlic Flakes or Paste (or add a couple of cloves of Garlic, chopped up if you have some fresh) a sprinkle of Chilli Flakes, stir these all together and then pour over the Rosemary.

 

 

Next get a selection of vegetables, these are what we usually use, it doesn't matter if they are a bit sad or out of date.  Chop them rouchly the same size, Cherry Tomatoes can go in whole, chop any big tomatoes into wedges, the onions are also lovely if you leave them in wedge shapes (cut in half and then into wedges).

 

 

Tip them all into the dish on top of the Rosemary and then give everything a really good stir so that the oil ends up coating everything.  Make sure the Rosemary is tucked deep amongst the veggies and then put it in the oven on a medium heat for about 40 minutes.  Halfway through give everything another good stir and, if you want to prepare it as a whole meal in one dish place either a salmon fillet, a chicken portion, or a Quorn fillet amongst the veggies and then pop back into the oven.

 

 

 

I always prepare much more than we need for one meal and then Lovely Hubby can take a good portion of it to work on top of a serving of Cous Cous the next day AND I have a tub or two to pop into the freezer ready to use for a miriad of other meals.

 

 

A spoonful or two makes for a brilliant topping on homemade pizzas, or cheat and use the little value ones from the supermarket as your base, add the Mediterranean Veggies and then a good sprinkle of cheese straight from the freezer.

 

It also makes a lovely lunch mixed with some cooked pasta, and is tasty either hot or cold, this time topped with some grated Parmesan style cheese.

 

So a really good dish to make up either at the start or the end of the week using all those leftovers that you can find lurking with intent at the bottom of the fridge.  I have enough veggies left in the fridge for one more batch of it and then I will have to dig deep in the chest freezer for all those little tubs of leftovers that I know are in there.

 

So in our opinion this is the best possible use for my favourite herb.

 

 

There's something else I'm just about to do with some of my Rosemary from the herb sink, I'll let you in on that one tomorrow, when I've taken some photos.

 

Sue xx