Freezing fresh herbs

... and recycling their stems to perfume the kitchen when cooking

When I buy fresh herbs, like basil, sage, rosemary, chives, oregano and so on, I don't leave them to rotten in the fridge if I can't use them all up. I separate leaves from their stems and freeze them separately in resealable freezer bags.  

Why separately? Why do I not get rid of the stems?

I use the frozen leaves for cooking and the stems to release amazing smells in my kitchen. Freezing is  the best (after fresh of course) solution for preserving smell and taste especially if sealed in a bag! 

Leaves

Once frozen, you can then crush the leaves in the bag, turning the leaves into a frozen powder (especially fragile herbs like tarragon, basil, sage). This frozen powder is much more powerful in taste and smell than any dry herbs you have ever tried. Careful to put the bag straight back in the freezer after helping yourself to the amount needed as this powder defrosts quickly becoming a messy mush! 

Stems

Every time I have the oven on, I put a few mixed herb stems on a tray at the bottom of the oven. To be honest I often add other stuff to this tray, not necessarily frozen. Like orange, lemon, ginger skins I have peeled but not binned ... these too are an incredible source of natural smells which come alive every time you use the oven.

PS: Of course when the herbs' stems are well toasted, bring them out of the oven before your fire alarms goes off! 

PPS: I keep a spoon in the freezer to use for transferring frozen herbs to whatever I am cooking. A frozen spoon will avoid melting or sticking the powder to it.

PPS: I also freeze lemon halves after squeezing the juice out of them. When I need grated lemon skin I can grate the frozen lemon skin. Talking of which, if I make too much lemon juice,  I also prepare lemon-juice-ice-cubes for later use, like in the picture below :)