The five recipes below provide a nice balance to one's weekly meals, with a soup, a salad, a sauteed green, and two starch heavy dishes- one rice, one pasta. This week we included a savory herb mix which contains seven unique herbs. Four of the herbs are easily distinguishable- sage (large, smooth leaves), oregano (smaller fuzzy leaves with a rigid stem and some flowers), marjoram (tiny leaves with a highly aromatic, florally flavor), and lavender (beautiful purple flowers with a heavenly aroma). The other three look and taste very similar, but upon close inspection they each have unique characteristics. The most easily differentiated is winter savory, which has smooth firm leaves and a spicy bite. As a hardy perennial this plant has a woody and semi-evergreen appearance. It's cousin, summer savory, is not as hardy, and it's small leaves and tender stems contain a less bitter bite, but still have a very complex aromatic flavor. The last herb included in the mix is thyme, which is the most mild flavored of the three, and also has the most tender leaves. The best way to use the herb mix is to strip all the leaves from the stems and finely chop everything together. To dry the mix for later use spread the herbs in a thin layer on your countertop and allow to dry over several days, and then place the mix to a sealed contained. Try the recipes below to find out how versatile this mix of herbs really is!

We usually try to only include ingredients in these recipes which are produced locally and to avoid food items which are known for having a large carbon foot print, but since fennel pairs so beautifully with citrus we cheated a little bit. Most of the salads we include in these blogs are very basic but we went more elaborate with the Fennel and Citrus salad below and it was definitely worth the trouble.