How I use herbs - coriander (or cilantro)

Its winter and coriander (Coriandrum sativum) is coming up in my garden. Outside of the sub-tropics, coriander is a spring/summer annual, but it quickly bolts in hot weather, so it grows better here in winter. This herbs is known by its Spanish name, cilantro, in the US (and obviously in countries that speak Spanish). Coriander is an ancient herb and spice, that is used in cuisines as varied as Indian, Chinese, Mexican, Egyptian and Mediterranean.

eight acres: growing and using coriander (cilantro)

How I grow coriander

You can get coriander as seedlings, but I usually plant it from seed. When it goes to seed in my garden, I scatter the seeds and they come up the next year. I also throw a few extra saved seeds around the garden in early in winter, to make sure I get plenty of coriander. It does grow better here in the colder months, and quickly bolts to seed when the weather warms up or if the soil dries out. The flowers are popular with bees and other pollinators, also resulting in plenty of seeds for next year's crop and for use as a spice.

This is my garden at the moment!

How I use coriander
Both the leaves and seeds of coriander can be eaten (also the roots apparently, but I haven't tried them).

- the leaves are good for digestion, and add a fresh taste to spicy dishes, best added as a garnish.

- the seeds chewed whole are good for breath freshener, but are also added ground, as part of a spice mix to many different dishes.

In particular, I use ground coriander seed in my spicy Mexican mince recipe.

As I only have coriander for a short period when its cool enough to grow here, I always look forward to it and treasure it while its fresh. I haven't found a good way to preserve the leaves so far.

My facourite use of coriander is in guacamole!

The new Eight Acres website is live!

Very soon this blogspot address will automatically redirect to the new Eight Acres site, but in the meantime, you can check it out here . You will find all my soaps, ebooks and beeswax/honey products there, as well as the blog (needs a tidy up, but its all there!). I will be gradually updating all my social media links and updating and sharing blog posts over the next few months. I'm very excited to share this new website with you!

Chicken tractor guest post

Sign up for my weekly email updates here , you will find out more about chickens, soap and our farmlife, straight to your inbox, never miss a post! New soap website and shop opening soon.... Tanya from Lovely Greens invited me to write a guest post on chicken tractors for her blog. I can't believe how many page views I get for chicken tractors, they seem to be a real area of interest and I hope that the information on my blog has helped people. I find that when I use something everyday, I forget the details that other people may not be aware of, so in this post for Tanya, I tried to just write everything I could think of that I haven't covered in previous posts. I tried to explain everything we do and why, so that people in other locations and situations can figure out how best to use chicken tractors with their own chickens. The dogs like to hang out behind the chicken tractors and eat chicken poo. Dogs are gross! If you want to read more about...

How to make soap with beer (and tallow)

I may have mentioned this before.... soap making is addictive! Once you start, you just want to keep making more soap. And not the same soap, you want to try all sorts of different soaps. I made the mistake of joining a facebook group called Saponification Nation and now my facebook newsfeed is full of glorious soaps, in all colours and shapes, which makes it even harder to resist the urge to experiment. One soap that kept popping up a few weeks ago was soap made with beer. I generally prefer not to use ingredients just for the sake of it, I like to know that they are adding something to the properties of the finished soap. As you know, I don't like to use artificial ingredients either (colours or fragrances). When I read about beer in soap I found out that beer adds sugar to the mixture, which increases lather. I use tallow in my soap, which has limited lather, so anything that adds lather could improve the soap. ...

Eight Acres

Search This Blog