Herbs in the kitchen - Garlic Chives

Growing, Harvesting, Saving, and Using Garlic Chives in the Kitchen
Since it is winter and all I thought that maybe some tips about herbs and their uses would be handy.  My sister Melanie writes a blog that started with trying new things in the kitchen.  She has tons of different dishes for readers to try.  She has even writen a post here on my blog.  Well I could never be as good a cook as her, she just has this passion for it.  But since reading her stuff and starting my gardening adventures I have been trying to get a little bit more creative in the kitchen.  Finding ways to bring my garden to the table. 

So in honor of my little sister I tried something new last night and would like to share it with you.

For the first Herbs in the Kitchen post I bring to you the Herb:

Garlic Chives

More commonly known as the Chineese herb or Chineese Chives.  Found in a lot of their dishes. 
Growing, Harvesting, Saving:
They have a Garlic/Onion smell to them.  Easy to grow, but not as easy to to preserve.  Ok thats only partially true.  Chives don't really dry well like most other herbs.  Maybe I am just doing wrong....and that is very possible as I am still new.  But I found that Freezing them work great.  The nice thing about freezing herbs is that when you go to use them you are actually using them in their fresh state.

Lets start at the begining.  1st of course you would need a plant and have it growing in your garden.  Whether that garden is pots on a balcony, or on your window sill, or in the ground in the yard.  From the above picture you can see that this herb looks a lot like grass.  And to be honest it kinda grows like grass.  The more you cut it the more it grows.  As long as like grass it has water and sun.

So you have the herbs growing.  Good now...time to harvest.  For this herb there is no real time period as to when you can or can 't harvest.  If there are green leaves (grass blades) you can harvest.  But the longer they are and the older the plant the better you are ofcourse.  So you want to use some just head out to their location and simply cut them.  It's best to leave at least 1/2inch above the soil when you cut. 

Now the next step for us is going to be the freezing of the chives.  Cut the chives so that they are smaller.  Basically chop them as if you were going to cook with them now.  Do you have a free icecube tray?

  Try these from the dollar store.  They are great little trays that make tube shapes icecubes.  Great for water bottles and I have found also for Herbs.  With a dry tray put your freshly cut chives (or any other herb you chose) into the tray.  Try to make it even accross.  The with a measuring cup add water to the tray.  I used a measuring cup because it would be easier to control the amount that went into each place with out loosing any herbs.  Once full simply put in the freezer.  Once Frozen-

You have Chives in and icetube.  The really nice thing also about this is just take out a tube from the freezer and put it in what ever dish you are making.  It adds a little water but usually not enough to have to alter other ingredients.  Make sure you put these tubes of chives into a ziplock back and lable it.  When frozen all herbs tend to look alike.

Useing:

Now for useing these frozen little treasures.  I used them for Pork Chops.

Pork Chops with Garlic Chives and Worcestershire sauce.

Ingredients:

4 Pork Chops

3/4c Worchestershire sauce (w-sauce)

3-4 Frozen chive tubes

1/4c French Fried Onions

Not being a big fan of pork chops I am always looking for ways to cook them.  These 4 chops above I cut at least in half.  Mainly to reduce cooking time but also cause I like to remove as much fat as I can...and that kinda make pork peices instead of chops.  But I wanted to show the size of them before there are 4 here.

So in a seperate bowl you will dip each chop into the W-sauce and then place into the warm frying pan.  In the pan add some of the cubes of chives.  The water will melt and help keep the chops from sticking as will the w-sauce.  Flip them often and stir the loose chives often as well.  For an added flavor I added the French fried onions and the rest of the chives after the chops had been cooking a few min.  If there is left over w-sauce in the bowl after all have been diped and and in the pan then add that to the pan as well.  Cook the pork untill no longer pink inside.  About 30 min over med heat.

The end result was a very moist pork chop that all ate.  If you want you can serve the french fried onions but we didn't....I just used them to add another flavor to the meal. 

Enjoy and let me know if you try this and how it comes out.

Be sure to stop by my sisters blog too and try some of her meals out.
http://www.itsmysideoflife.com/