Thanksgiving Feast with Fresh Herbs and Veggies from Your San Diego Garden
Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of family gatherings, good cheer, and LOTS of cooking. There’s nothing quite like using herbs and vegetables from your garden. Preparing scrumptious meals with fresh herbs and vegetables from your garden fills your home with an unforgettable aroma that brings back memories and creates new ones.
With Thanksgiving right around the corner, now is a good time to talk about the fresh herbs and vegetables you can harvest from your garden for use in your meal prep. Fresh herbs and vegetables have the best flavor, and it doesn’t get any fresher than harvesting from your garden!
Herbs to Harvest for Thanksgiving Meal
When picking fresh herbs from your garden, pay attention to the recipe and use a 3:1 ratio of fresh to dried herbs.
Parsley
One of the most widely used herbs is parsley. It could be because it’s high in vital nutrients, such as vitamins A, B, and C. In San Diego County, you can grow parsley in the garden year-round, and if you’re planning to cook with it, the flat parsley is best (use curly leaf parsley for a garnish).
Here’s how you can use it for Thanksgiving:
- Use it as a rub for turkey. Use parsley with rosemary, sage, and thyme.
- Add chopped parsley to your gravy (you can perk up the taste by adding parsley at the end of cooking time)
- Add fresh parsley along with thyme and sage to stuffing
Sage
Sage is one of the main ingredients in poultry seasonings. When using sage for cooking, it’s best to harvest it before the purple flowers bloom. You can use safe fresh or dried but it’s more flavorful when fresh.
Here are some ideas for cooking with sage at Thanksgiving:
- Use it in conjunction with rosemary, parsley, and thyme to create a tasty rub for turkey
- Sage can be added to biscuit and cornbread recipes
- Chop it up and add to stuffing
- Chopped up sage can be added to your post-Thanksgiving turkey soup
Rosemary
Rosemary grows well in San Diego County’s mild climate. This culinary herb adds ornamental appeal to any water-wise garden. Rosemary has a wonderful aroma and packs powerful flavor — a little goes a long way in cooking.
Check out these ideas for cooking with rosemary at Thanksgiving:
- Place the rosemary stems directly into the cavity of the turkey
- Use it as a rub in conjunction with thyme, sage, and parsley.
- Makes a nice addition to homemade bread
- Use it in roasted potatoes
Thyme
Thyme thrives in our local climate, making it a good choice for growing in a water-wise garden or in pots. Thyme is an aromatic herb that adds a nice flavor to recipes. When cooking with thyme, you’ll want to throw it into the recipe early, as it’s an herb that slowly releases flavor.
Here are some ideas for cooking with thyme at Thanksgiving:
- Add it to your stuffing
- Use it in rub (along with the herbs we mention in this article)
- Make a homemade salad dressing (remove the leaves from the sprig)
Vegetables to Harvest for Thanksgiving Meal
Nothing tops the flavor of fresh vegetables from the garden. In San Diego, you can grow and harvest tasty vegetables for a Thanksgiving meal. Here are a few of our favorite vegetables that we like to harvest and include in our Thanksgiving meal.
- Carrots
- Beets
- Broccoli
- Cabbage
- Kale
- Garlic
- Onions
- Leeks
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Westturf Landscape Management would like to wish all joy at Thanksgiving!
If you're looking for a new HOA landscape maintenance service company in Vista, Carlsbad, Oceanside, and throughout San Diego County, look no further than Westturf Landscape Maintenance Inc. We have been enhancing landscapes in Vista, Carlsbad, and throughout San Diego since 1972!
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Westturf Landscape Management
701 Mercantile Street
Vista, CA 92083
Phone: 760.650.3120