Soft Summer Herbs

Soft herbs such as parsley, cilantro, chervil, chives, tarragon, basil, mint and dill are best used fresh, especially during the summer months when the market is bursting with locally grown varieties. But many of us avoid buying fresh herbs; it can be challenging to use them up before they rot or start to mold and they have to be thrown away. To avoid wasting fresh herbs, we need to break out of old habits. Too often we think of herbs as a garnish for color, but herbs don't deserve to be relegated to the sidelines.

In Eastern Mediterranean cuisine, for example, herbs are eaten in much larger quantities than is common in the U.S. Think of tabbouleh; when made properly, it's actually a parsley salad, garnished with bulghur wheat, tomatoes, onions, lemon juice and olive oil. And it's delicious. Make a batch for yourself; you'll have no problem using up an entire bunch (or three) of parsley. Take a page from Mediterranean cuisine and learn to use fresh herbs in places (and amounts) that you normally wouldn't.

Toss a mixture of fresh herbs into eggs while you scramble them. Bake them into biscuits. Large handfuls of freshly picked herbs enliven green salads. They can also be mixed in with grain and pasta dishes as well as marinated vegetables. Add them into the pan just at the end of cooking a piece of fish and toss a handful into every vegetable dish you put on the table. And you can turn them into fresh herb pastes to dress grilled vegetables, fish or chicken and to replace mayonnaise in sandwiches. Herb pastes are also delicious stirred into mashed potatoes, rice, pasta and couscous.