The peppermint we having growing just outside our kitchen window! Since discovering the fragrant leaves, I’ve made peppermint & garlic tea when not feeling well, but tonight was the first time I used fresh mint leaves while cooking. It’s so nice to just walk outside and pick from the multitude of leaves, and it’s free! No buying expensive fresh herbs at the store anymore, yippee!

Here’s a nice shot of mint leaves. Take a good look; you might have it growing somewhere near you, too 🙂
Here’s a great list of recipes that use fresh peppermint, if you’d like to try cooking with it.
If you have an herb garden or frequently buy fresh herbs, here’s some tips on how to store them properly.
And lastly, a nice info page on the medicinal uses of peppermint, from the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Tomorrow I’ll post the recipe I used the mint leaves in– it was a meal borne out of a trip to the farmer’s market this afternoon and a quick internet search for how to prepare pattypan squash! (I just love that name) Can’t wait to share it with you guys!
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You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces – just good food from fresh ingredients. –Julia Child
I made cranberry sauce, and when it was done put it into a dark blue bowl for the beautiful contrast. I was thinking, doing this, about the old ways of gratitude: Indians thanking the deer they’d slain, grace before supper, kneeling before bed. I was thinking that gratitude is too much absent in our lives now, and we need it back, even if it only takes the form of acknowledging the blue of a bowl against the red of cranberries. -Elizabeth Berg