Herby Butter

Today is National Supreme Sacrifice Day.  Forget that!!  Who comes up with this stuff, anyway??  I'm headed out for pizza and diggin' with Miss CutiePie today, so no sacrificing here.  She is gonna do the digging and I'm gonna reap the benefits of divided Autumn Joy sedums and daylillies.  I've almost waited too long but because of the carpal tunnel surgery I've not been able to get on the business end of a shovel.  That has been the hardest part of this whole deal.

Pictured above is my son, the plumber, holding my great-granddaughter, Miss AslynGrace.  She is coming up on six months here pretty soon.  She is a tiny little thing.  Her grandpa weighed what she does now at six weeks!!  What a little beauty she is!!

Yesterday I got outside before the rain hit and pruned up the herb patch.  In these two pots which are outside the kitchen door, I grow sage, thyme, marjoram, and oregano.  They were looking pretty scraggly, so I cleaned them up.  The purple sage did not do very well over the winter.

I gave the new growth a haircut so it can take off now that we are having some warmish sunny days.

When you grow herbs in pots, they have to be dumped out and divided every three or four years, depending on post size.  Otherwise, they don't do very well.  I also give them all new dirt to give them a boost.

The thyme smelled so good when I was cleaning it up that I thought that I should make a batch of herb butter for the freezer.  This recipe is easy peasy and you can adjust it any way you like.  You can use whatever herb that you want.  Dill butter is another one of my faves.

For thyme butter I assembled butter, cracked pepper, garlic, lemon zest, and the thyme, of course, in my food processor:

Midway through, give it a good scraping so that it all gets incorporated.

When it is well mixed, scrape it onto some plastic wrap and mold it into a log.

Once you have it shaped, wrap it up and stick it in the freezer.  When you want to use it, just slice off what you need and put the rest back until next time.  I like to put slices under the breast skin when I'm roasting a chicken and add it to finish steamed veggies or fish.

If you have more than one person in your household, you can make several rolls at a time.  When the dill is on this summer, I'll make several to last through the winter.  This stuff is really good!!  We all need a jolt of summer time in the deep bowels of winter.