There was quite a nip in the air this morning, although most of the herb garden is still producing nicely. Still, some heartier fare may be the order of the day. I see lots of parsley and thyme in need of harvesting, and still some decent tarragon, so I’m thinking those would flavor a chicken pot pie nicely.

I’m much more of a cook than a baker, so I use bought pie crusts. While my stock is coming to a boil, I’ll cut some carrots into bite sized pieces, toss them in the stock to cook, and then add some chopped celery to the pot. The carrots are mostly cooked by the time I’ve cut a bunch of boneless chicken breasts into the same size as the carrots, so that gets stirred in. As soon as the stock returns to a boil, we’ll toss on some sliced mushrooms, and the pot gets covered and taken off the burner since the residual heat will cook the chicken and mushrooms.

Before I go to pick the herbs, I’ll add some frozen peas to the mix and re-cover the pot. With my herbs chopped and ready (I added some chives too) I’ll drain off the well-flavored stock into another large pot, add the herbs, bring it back to a boil and thicken with a corn starch slurry. Now to adjust the salt and pepper in the herb flavored gravy and dump the chicken and vegetables (and a couple jars of pearl onions) back in.

Even though I had planned on extras for freezing and sharing with local family, I have more pie filling than shells, so the extra goes into a casserole dish and gets covered with purchased crescent roll dough instead of pie crust. Once the pies and casserole come out of the oven, it all gets divvied up into dinner (with some late garden beans and sliced cukes on the side), freezer and sharing portions. Pretty tasty if I do say so myself.

Now that autumn is here (shorter days, cooler nights) it’s time to think about moving some herbs indoors. Even just a little bit of fresh flavor added to a dish in the dead of winter can make a gardeners heart soar. My herbs are mostly on our desk in planters, but I noticed a couple volunteer plants in the flower beds below, a solitary parsley plant and one of oregano. I transplanted both of those into my little clay pots, and did a couple pots of chives as well, putting them all under my grow lights. Chives, as I have eluted to before, are both my favorite herb as well as my biggest invasive pest in the garden. My transplants came from the edge of my fall snap pea bed, beautiful little chive plants that shouldn’t have been there. I don’t really understand a given plant’s internal clock, but I’m assuming that a seedling in a rich growing medium with plenty of light and water will thrive, even if it ‘s snowing outside. We shall see. The basil and cilantro started from seed under the lights have been doing great, but they have never known anything but bagged potting soil. The transplants from outdoors could potentially bring insects with them, and infect all the herbs. How does one purify outside dirt without killing the plant growing in it?