The plants on my little deck garden that brightened my spring and summer have bid their seasonal adieu. 🙁 And now when I go back there to get some fresh air with Tabs, there are no more gorgeous greens and bright yellow sunflowers for us to look at (and for him to nibble). Just drooping vines and crumbly brown leaves.
But I gotta get my green thumb on somehow, so I picked up this Potted Herb Garden from Trader Joe’s…
I think it was around $10.
It’s sitting just to the left of my kitchen sink… I hope it hangs on through winter.
Isn’t she cute?? Of course I had to name her. She goes by Lola! 🙂
I’ve been doing a lot more cooking over the past two weeks, and it’s always nice to have fresh herbs. I just have to be careful not cut too much at one time…
They had different herb combo plants at TJ’s when I was there. This one has thyme, rosemary and sage.
I haven’t used a lot of sage before in cooking. What does it go well with? It certainly smells delicious, and the leaves sure are soft.
Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,
Karen
Hi Lola!
Sage-butter sauce is to die for on ravioli or gnocchi. I also think sage goes really well with meats, especially more flavorful ones like lamb or pork.
Mmm, sounds good!
By the way, I still have your fish tacos recipe on file. I think I’m finally over my pregnancy food weirdness and can eat fish again (YAY!), so I’m looking forward to making it. 🙂 Thank you again for the recipe.
No problem! Fish tacos have become a staple in my house, I do them every time I want something delicious but don’t have the energy to cook something complicated!
Haha, well, I guess it’s easier to pick a name for a herb garden than for a baby. Less commitment and less permanent and everything…
Well I actually got to look at this plant! Still haven’t had the chance to see the baby face-to-face, so I’m sure it’ll be different when I actually see her you know?
I buy that every year for Thanksgiving. Watch out for Sage too much can be overpowering
Gotcha! What do you usually use it on? Fish, meats?
My cat loves to chew on the TJs herb pot !!!
I buy it for the turkey and use it for the stuffing and gravy.
Sage is a big component of poultry seasoning
Need to get to traders soon ?
I was going to say that you’re only Parsley away from a Simon & Garfunkel song. 🙂
I use a ton of sage for turkey and stuffing. You can use it to make compound butter that can then be put under the turkey skin (just carefully use your fingers/hands to create space between the skin and meat and then stuff the butter in there and baste every 30 minutes during roasting). For stuffing, cube up a lb of artisan bread and toast it. In the meantime, heat 5 tbs butter and 1 tbs oil in a stock pot and sweat some diced onion, celery and garlic. Add a qt of chicken stock and season with poultry seasoning, parsley and chives (simmer for about half an hour). Pour over your toasted bread crumbs, mix and stuff your turkey or bake. You can also use veg stock instead of chicken. I do that for my sister when she visits for the holidays. Happy sage-ing! 🙂
Haha, I thought the same thing when I picked these herbs. LOL! We had a parsley plant for the summer and to be honest I’m kind of over it. Those things grow FAST and they totally take over the plant.
Anywho, I’m jotting down your stuffing recipe because it sounds absolutely delicious! Will you be making a full Thanksgiving spread this year? There’s been talk on this end about going to a buffet at a casino near my in-laws house (sigh). We’ll see how things work out.
I’m with you on the parsley. I would always end up chopping it and freezing it (to use in soups, etc). It really is my fave stuffing recipe, as you can see, since I know it by heart. HAHA! Yes, I’m the holiday cooking queen in our family. I really do enjoy it. I’m sorry about the casino but here’s the upside: once baby girl is born, everyone will come to you for every holiday! If you want them to, that is. There’s a strong case to be made for all her things being at your house and not having to worry if she’s having a bad day/has to leave for a nap, etc. Enjoy! 🙂 PS We spent 2 Thanksgivings at Disney so I feel your pain. I like to be home for the holidays.
I wish you could telepathically send all your holiday cooking skills to me! We hosted it once a few years ago and let’s just say it wasn’t a total disaster. At least the food was cooked and nobody got sick! In my dream scenario, I’d be home in stretchy pants watching movies all day. We’d pick up a pre-made meal (or I’d have mad cooking skills like you so I could pull it off) and that would be that. Oh, and I’d finish an entire pecan pie by myself. Can’t forget that. 🙂
I haven’t seen these yet! And that’s saying something because I’m always in Trader Joes 😀 I wish it wasn’t getting so close to winter here otherwise I’d totally pick a few of these up!
Hi Kelly,
Maybe get a plant for the indoors? I’m keeping mine in the kitchen. 🙂
i want one!
i love Trader Joe
Me too! It’s the best store. 🙂 Can’t wait for the holiday cookies… The countdown to Chocolate Stars is ON!
I just bought a box of the Mint Chocolate Stars yesterday! I guess Christmas is coming early this year =)
…. i need chocolate stars…….
What a cute herb garden! Fresh thyme is one of my favorite ones to use. We cut down all our tomato plants, but picked off the green fruit. Luckily, they still ripen up so we’ve got some cherry tomatoes to last for a while.
Mingus is bummed about the lack of fresh, organic catnip from the front yard. 🙂
Poor Mingy! Maybe you can bring him a potted plant and keep it inside? That’s what we end up doing during the winter for our resident diva. 🙂
That’s a good idea! We chopped down the plant to try and dry some of the leaves and buds so maybe that will suffice for his highness. 🙂
The neighbor’s cats had never had fresh catnip, so my husband took some leaves over and they loved it. They weren’t sure what to do with it at first and then figured out they could eat it!
My Mum makes sage & onion stuffing that goes inside roast chickens… I don’t have a recipe, but it’s delicious!
I was just in TJ’s and missed that. I’ll have to check it out this weekend. I bet Tabs loves it!
How cute! I love that you named it. 🙂
Sage goes great with poultry, pork, pasta and stuffing.
I manage to kill these almost instantly. The only plants that survive my indoors are orchids and succulents…
Sage goes well with all land based meats. It’s also a perfect partner for squash. You can make a brown butter sage sauce easily. I prefer to add a splash of white wine and bone broth to mine to make it more like a gravy. It’s a great way to dress up your turkey-day leftovers. It is perfect for fall pastas for a butter sauce or cream sauce. It’s great with bacon or any cured pork too, You can also make classic dishes like Saltimbocca! Stuffing and savory bread pudding is also sage territory!
I just brought most of my potted plants inside for the winter the other night. I have some sage (still growing/going strong!), lemongrass and a few other plants. They look really ugly sitting in my house on a broken down cardboard box, but I did this last winter too and they were actually really happy inside the house all nice and warm lol.
Isn’t sage stuffing a classic go-to side for turkey at Thanksgiving? The gardener in me wants to separate those into three separate pots to give the roots some room to grow. If your roots don’t have room to grow, the tops can’t grow very well as they rely on the roots for nourishment.
Ohhh, I soooo want one! And we haven’t a Trader Joe’s anywhere in sight! Maybe Whole Foods or the Fresh Market may carry something like that. I chop up sage, mix it in melted butter, cool until butter becomes solid again, and slather my turkey with it. Plus I add fresh sage to my stuffing. Yummy, I didn’t even realize I was craving Thanksgiving dinner until now haha
Sage is really yummy with pork. Sometimes, for a pretty presentation I’ll stick a leaf to one side of a pork chop and fry it like that. The sage gets nice and crispy and flavors the cooking oil a bit that way, too.
Also great is making a sage-brown butter sauce. It’s good with butternut squash, cheese ravioli, the list goes on.
Hi! Be sure to repot Lola in a bigger pot and add organic compost. Make sure there is sunlight coming through that kitchen window, and take her out on warmer days for some natural light.
When trimming for recipes, don’t take more than 30% of each herb at a time or you’ll cause the plant to go into shock, but it sounds like you have that down already!
I picked one up for myself too, but three plants in a tiny pot – I suspected they’d be root-bound and I was right! That’s why people are always left feeling that they don’t have a green thumb when they buy these little pretties at the grocery store and struggle to keep them alive. They’re real plants and their roots need room to be free to take up water and nutrients. If they’re winding themselves around in circles in a little pot, they’re not long for this world. Given the proper conditions, that rosemary will last you for years and years!
I’m so glad to see you and Lola found each other, happy gardening everyone! 🙂