Joyous tidings of spring today, with birds singing and temperatures warm enough to walk outside without a jacket.  Frozen snow is still coating the ground, but in the greenhouse it's still possible to rub mint leaves between your fingers and imagine summer.  

Herbs have always been part of our medicinal, culinary and folkloric repertoire and are now regaining great popularity.   Beneath the snow I'm hoping the perennial herbs are surviving and am looking forward to their color, texture and perfume when they emerge.   Last fall I potted up a few varieties of these stalwarts in well-drained compost and have them in pots on my windowsill so I can use them in recipes throughout the winter.  

Rosemary is Queen of the winter greenhouse herbs. Introduced by the Romans, it is a flavorsome partner to garlic and lemon, is great with lamb, chicken or a pan of roast mixed vegetables.  It's easy to add a few sprigs to a bottle of supermarket olive oil as a pick-me-up to baste or drizzle over winter salads.  

Sage is traditionally used in stuffings or bread sauce.  It's also delicious with pared lemon rind, pine nuts, mushrooms and garlic with poultry. To add flavor to winter salad dressings try macerating a leaf in a bottle of white balsamic or cider vinegar with a few juniper berries.  I'm fond of the golden, chartreuse and purple varieties which brighten up any beds inside or out.

Thyme is great chopped and added to an aromatic winter salad of radicchio with lentils, another simple recipe is to beat together a few sprigs with 12oz of white beans, two crushed cloves of garlic and some chili to taste, then slowly pour in olive oil and the juice of half a lemon.  Season with salt and pepper and eat with toasted sourdough bread.   I also grow lemon thyme which is wonderful when stripped of its stems and pounded into a gremolade with lemon zest, garlic and sea salt to eat with sauteed fish.  Outside, thyme can be used to creep it's fragrant way into the most unwelcoming spots.

Bay leaves are delicious fresh. Add a few leaves to a jam jar of sugar to flavour rice puddings, or add a sprig of rosemary, lavender or a vanilla pod instead. Gather all four herbs together to make a bouquet garni, and add to a slow-cooked tomato purée with a little brown sugar for pasta, or just use a bunch to decorate your kitchen table.

WInter Savory, another easy indoor winter herb, is wonderfully aromatic on good bread toasted with goat's cheese and drizzled with olive oil.

Chervil, pale green, frilly, and delicious as a topping for creamy scrambled eggs. 

Strong cheese, like goat’s cheese, works well with pungent herbs. Try marinating a few round crottins with sprigs of thyme, rosemary or savoury in a jar, with shallots, chilli peppers and garlic. Top up with oil and leave for a month.

One of my favorite pasta recipes is memorized from an old Italian cookbook.  The original version called for a lavish assortment of ten chopped herbs warmed gently in a pan of olive oil for a few minutes, until the herbs turned vibrant green.  I've experimented with a tablespoon each of chopped parsley, garlic chives, chervil, sage, marjoram and thyme, a chopped garlic clove and dried chilli with ground black pepper.  Spoon over a dish of hot linguini. 

Nothing better on a cold rainy day than a bowl of hot soup.  Parsnips are one of my favorite winter vegetables, this is an easy fabulous recipe.

Parsnip Soup
1 stick butter
1 and ½ c. chopped onions
2 c. parsnip, peeled and sliced into 1 in. pieces.
2 c. cooked pumpkin or one 15oz can of raw pumpkin.
(You can use  4 cups parsnip but the soup will be very sweet)
Dash nutmeg (optional)
 Dollop of sour cream and chopped scallions or chives for garnish

Sauté chopped onions in butter on med-low heat in a covered pan until the onions are soft.  Add parsnips and continue to sauté in covered pan until really soft.  Process the cooked mixture in a food processor in batches adding beef bouillon to make the soup the right thickness for your taste. You can use any brand of bouillon, but the Better than Bouillon brand is the best - it’s in glass jars in the bouillon section of the grocery store. The vegetable base also works.  
Add a little nutmeg if desired and season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Add just a dollop of sour cream to bowls and add flavor and garnish with sprinkling of chopped scallion or chives. 

In our computerized, automated age, an article I just read about the British forced rhubarb business astonished me.  The heart of the industry is in Yorkshire where loam soil on a clay base makes for perfect rhubarb crowns. The process has changed little since Victorian times, when rhubarb's popularity was at it's peak, and farmers planted their crop in heated sheds with earth floors, and harvested by candle-light.  The local coal mines provided cheap fuel, waste effluence enriched the soil and, as "rhubarb loves soot", the crop thrived in the high levels of air pollution.

Forced rhubarb, with it's fabulous fushia pink stems, sherbert-tangy flavor and delicate texture, is the crème de la crème.  It sounds very different from the stringy, tannic, greenish stalks I grow in my garden.  However, forcing it is a really tedious labor of love.   First the roots, or crowns, are grown outside for at least two years.  Early in their third winter they are dug up after it has been cold enough to break their dormancy and planted in heated sheds.  All light is blocked off and in the dark warmth the shoots appear so quickly the sheaths around the buds can be heard gently popping.  Three weeks later they are ready for their first "pulling" or harvesting.  This in itself is quite an art.  The "pullers" carry cast iron stakes topped with a candle as electric light spoils the color of the stems, in the pale flickering light they have to navigate a sea of chartreuse-yellow leaves and pull only the stems that are as long as an arm while not damaging any of the plants.  It is said this arcane cold-dark-heat process was discovered by a gardener who threw an old crown on a stable muck pile.  The manure was hot and the plant was soon covered, until a couple of weeks later the startling pink stems were found and eaten by a stable boy.  

Great story, now I just have to seek some out here so I can make my annual rhubarb vodka recipe.  I was inspired by the most delicious rhubarb vodka I tasted at a pub in the Cotswolds - unfortunately it was made privately for them and not available commercially.  I've been trying ever since to replicate the taste.  Last year I added vanilla pods, but unlike the year before the rhubarb stems I used were green,  I think both the colour and flavour are better when fuchsia pink forced rhubarb is used.  This year I'm going to follow the advice we were given at Bovey Castle at their cider and sloe gin making course.  The secret seems to leave it in the vodka for 9 months to a year, not the couple of months I have been steeping it for.  Hard to wait that long!  

Rhubarb infused vodka
Bright pink rhubarb
Sugar
vodka
Large container with sealable lid
Wash the rhubarb and cut the sticks into equal-sized lengths.  Fill container at least 1/2 full.  According to most recipes you should pour sugar over and shake until the rhubarb is covered.  I find this is too sweet so just add sugar until it is about halfway up the rhubarb.  Add vodka to more than cover and shake.  Shake 1x a day for a week, 1x week for a month, 1x month for a year.  Drink!

Another cold day with flurries of snow and more snow forecast.  A good day for chocolate cake and a mug of tea.  This recipe is from Paula's kitchen and seems to be absurdly easy.

Sour Cream Chocolate Cake
Boil 1 c. water with 1 stick butter and 4 1oz. unsweetened chocolate.
Beat 2 eggs and 2 cups of sugar
Add 2 c. flour 
½ tsp salt
1 and ½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
½ c. sour cream

Grease and flour pan and bake 30 min. @ 350.