Sunday's Project: Drying Fig Leaves and Herbs

I'm really excited about today's project, as it's one I've dabbled with in the past, but haven't committed to doing the right way. I've been saying for the last few years, "this year, this is the year we'll really do it." So this year, we are. 

Today we will be hanging a few hooks in our house, stringing twine from one to the other, and beginning to dry some of our herbs, and most importantly, fig leaves. 

Every year I find that I let some (or a lot of) our herbs go to waste, and it always makes me sad. It just feels like such a waste. Especially when those herbs could be used in cooking or tisanes once the weather turns cold. 

What's a tisane? I asked the same question a few years back when I noticed them on the shelves at the bio. Essentially think of a drink that is made just like tea, but doesn't actually contain tea leaves in it. Drinks made with dried flowers, dried herbs, etc., but without tea leaves, are tisanes. So that post I did last summer on Fig Leaf Tea was actually a Fig Leaf Tisane. (Hashtag whoops.) Semantics aside, it was still delicious. 

So that brings me back to this project. The other day I made a delicious fresh fig leaf and fresh mint tisane that was out of this world. Drinking it made me feel like I was at a spa. And I thought to myself, now is the summer to dry all these leaves I've wanted to, so that once the leaves have fallen off of the trees outside I can still enjoy a nice tisane. I refuse to feel the pangs of regret at yet another winter of no fig leaf based tisane drinks, or having to buy dried herbs!

We're starting off small, as this is the first batch, but we should be able to get a couple of drying rounds in before the fall hits and the leaves begin to drop. In today's round we're drying fig leaves from a few of our local trees, as well as mint, rosemary, and chives from our terrace orchard garden. If our drying process yields enough by the end of the summer, I may have a small amount available to offer to some fellow fig-loving-tisane-drinking-readers, if you'd be interested. 

Never had a tisane? Try one out! You can make them with so many different herbs or flowers, dried or fresh, and many have some great health benefits if consumed regularly/properly. Always either ask your doctor before consuming, especially if you're pregnant, and do a quick Google search as some have cautions. Check out my fig leaf tea tisane from last summer here, or try adding a sprig of mint (about 10-12 leaves) into the tea ball with a chopped up medium sized fig leaf for the heavenly drink I had the other day. 

Check back for more updates on our drying process!

A la prochaine friends...

Honey 

Verveine tisane...

Most of the things that I've encountered in France that revolve around eating have been right up my alley - dinners starting at 8:30 PM, taking one's time to eat (as in three or four hours) so that you can actually appreciate the food that is going into your mouth, the social atmosphere of meals - however the one thing that I still don't understand is why the french choose to have espresso after the meal, which is usually in and around the time of 11 PM. After a night with zero sleep thanks to my approximately 11:30 PM espresso following a friend's birthday dinner last night, I began to wonder, do the french actually sleep?


Cut to last week - we were in the Botanic center in St. Genis-Pouilly buying pots and soil, and I came upon a verveine citronnelle (lemon verbena) plant. The smell of it was the *exact* same smell as the lemon italian water ice that we used to subsist off of on the beach in the summer in Margate, NJ. I knew my life would not be complete without this plant. We brought it home, put it in a bigger pot, and wondered what to do with it.


Pic via here.

So, this morning, in my sleep-deprived-over-caffeinated-state, I began searching for recipes of how to actually use this delicious, refreshing, and nostalgia inducing plant in a way to ease my crankyness. Low and behold - french verveine tisane. I've often seen tisane in the Bio and Migros, but was never quite sure if it was tea or something else. It turns out it's something else - more of an herbal infusion lacking the tannins and caffeine. Tisanes claim to do everything from promoting relaxation, helping one fall asleep after a full meal or an overload of caffeine, to curing migraines (depending on the leaves infused). I found that verveine is often used in these tisanes, and decided that since I've got a little plant just begging to be used on the patio, that it was time to experiment. The result was delicious, with a gentle lemon taste, and dare I say relaxing? You can experiment as you wish to your taste, but for my tisane I used approximately 30 fresh verveine leaves infused in a teapot of boiling water, allowing it to steep for 5 minutes. If you don't have a verveine plant, the link listed above also provides recipes for combinations of other fresh and dried herbs, such as rosemary, basil, fennel, dill, mint and lavender. So,after the next dinner outing and late night espresso I will definitely test out the powers of the french tisane and hope it overcomes the caffeine to will me to sleep...