The mornings are cooler, the leaves are falling and I can smell fall in the air. As we prepare the ground for our fall garden, we are looking for ways to preserve our summer herbs. Some herbs will stay in the ground because they over-winter well. Some we will put in smaller pots and move to the greenhouse or keep them on the windowsill. But our basil looks so beautiful and it’s so large, I hate to lose all those herbs. That is where making herb salt is a great option. The salt preserves the herbs and you have a quick seasoning all year long. It’s delicious on top of goat cheese, or in olive oil for a bread dip or even to season a chicken. The options are limitless.
Rosemary doesn’t like our soil so I harvested a friend’s rosemary and gave her a jar of herb salt in exchange. We first made herb salt last year and as you can see from the picture above, it was a little too salty.
Madelynn and I made two different batches; one with fennel and one without. Here are the herbs we used: rosemary, thai basil, sweet basil, another kind of basil, lemon balm, pineapple sage, and garlic chives.
You may be wondering what this has to do with not wasting! Once we take all the herbs off the stems, we don’t throw the stems in the trash. We put them in a ziploc bag, put it in the freezer, and add the stems to bone broth. No waste!

We had a girls night recently (another post to come) and the focus was all about bread making and sourdough. We each brought the knowledge we had to the kitchen and shared ideas, recipes, sourdough starters and laughter; lots of laughter. I have been baking with sourdough for many years (maybe 8?) and I have always been turned off by the word “discard.” Seeing as I don’t like to waste, that word just causes me to get chill bumps. Why would I discard my beautiful starter? We discussed this at our girls night and did some research: this “discard” isn’t a waste, as it can be used in many recipes, and it serves a purpose. The Mama starter needs to be fed more the larger she gets. The “discard” helps her to not be so dense and to grow and be more active. I have two different starters going and they each have a name: Daisy (it was my original starter given to me 8 years ago by a friend) and Sandie (given to me last week by a dear friend. Daisies are my favorite flower and Sandie has special meaning because of where the starter originated. So I have renamed my “discard” to Mama Sandie or Mama Daisy. Here’s an example: “I made these tortillas with Mama Daisy.” When I use active batter for a longer rise sourdough, I call that “activated batter,” taken from a beautiful and informative book called Wild Bread.
This week I have made tortillas, savory pesto muffins and pancakes from the different Mama’s. I am still learning so much each day as I experiment and the kids are in the kitchen learning right along with me. The tortillas were not beautiful but they tasted delicious. The pancakes were a bit sour but we ate them. The next girls night we plan to perfect bagels and soft pretzels. All of our husbands are definitely in support of these evenings because we bring home such yummy food!