First Meal With my Mint

A couple days ago I made the first actual dish using my own mint since adopting the plant a month ago. I made the asparagus stir-fry, and it was delish. I added a fresh salad with cucumbers and shitake sesame dressing to make the meal a bit more complete, and uber-healthy! Veggies to the max! Here's a couple pics (not the greatest quality, but the best I could do with the poor lighting in the prep corner of the kitchen):

The Line-up of Ingredients. Can you spot the mint?

Slivered Basil and Mint

This was my first time taking pictures while cooking. I really enjoyed it and found it had a slowing effect, encouraging full immersion in the preparation rather than speeding through it to get to the actual cooking. It gave me more time to breathe in the sensuous aromas of sliced scallions, chopped garlic, grated ginger, a juiced lime, and slivered mint and basil, enjoying their freshness before the smell of heated sesame oil overpowered the delightful olfactory potpourri to create one looming monoscent. Photographing as I went also allowed me to really appreciate how beautiful all of the ingredients were, especially the red chard! I was in awe of its stunning magenta stalks and rich, dark green leaves. The picture definitely does not do it justice.

Already I notice another positive effect of having my own herbs. In the very first post on this blog, I briefly mentioned how the culinary uses of herbs was one of the reasons for deciding to grow my own. Before when I would cook with herbs, I cooked with them because the recipe called for their use, and oftentimes what I didn't use would sadly go to waste, or I would feel pressured to find a recipe that called for the herb precisely so it wouldn't go to waste. Now the herbs are my muse. By taking this sort of bottom-up approach to searching for new recipes, a more varied and unique list of recipes emerges than if the search had been guided by a main ingredient (i.e. meat vs. no meat) or ethnic variety. I can't wait until my basil and parsley are mature enough to use so that I'll have 3 resident muses instead of just one.