This summer the herbs in my balcony garden thrived. Perhaps the most bountiful herb was oregano. Problem is that I RARELY use fresh oregano. Trust me when I say I tried integrating it into a bunch of recipes but I couldn’t keep up with how fast that stuff grew.
Now that it’s October (!) the days are cooler the days of my balcony garden are numbered. While I’m all for preserving fruit and vegetables I’ve never really preserved herbs. Sure I know that you can chop them up and put them in the freezer but my freezer is always full enough as it is.
Then I thought about drying. I mean EVERYONE has dried herbs in their cupboard so why not dry my own? I quickly learned that there are numerous ways to dry herbs. The most often recommended is hanging the herbs upside down somewhere and letting nature go to work. I honestly couldn’t think of a single place in my apartment to hang herbs so I passed on that.
Next was using a food dehydrator and while I’ve wanted this food dehydrator by Ron Popeil since I was about 10 I don’t have one, so I passed. Another option was turning the oven on the lowest setting and putting the herbs in there for a few hours. While I’m sure this is a good method I hate the idea of leaving the oven on for hours.
This led me to my least favourite appliance… the microwave. While I’m not a fan of microwaves I am a fan of quick. I put a few sprigs (does oregano have sprigs) of oregano on a paper towel in the microwave and microwaved them in 30 second increments until they were brittle… about a minute and a half to two minutes.
Once the herbs were brittle I pulled them off the stems and crumbled them. Super easy! I’ll have to play around and see what else this technique works on.
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Now that is quick! I will have to try that before the first frost decimates my pot herbs.
The oregano actually looks nice and green still! Does it retain it’s flavor this way?
p.s. I always wanted one of those dehydrators, too. I could watch that infomercial for hours.
The colour is still hanging on!
So much cheaper than going for a dehydrator! Great idea, thanks!
So true, but I still want a dehydrator