Preserving the harvest: sage and rosemary

I just love living in Utah.

Herbs practically dry themselves here. Sage grows like a weed, which is ok, because I really love it, especially in browned butter sauce over gnocchi or other pasta, or sizzled in olive oil with chickpeas and shells, or...

Anyway. the easiest thing I’ve found to do with large-ish herbs around here is to take a needle and thread, and cut a bunch of branches of whatever you’ve got---sage or rosemary, say. Thread the needle through the stem of the herb, and hang them up out of the sun, but somewhere that air can circulate around. The back of our kitchen works fine. They’ll just dry, with no further attention from you. (Note: this would almost certainly NOT have worked in Seattle!) Usually, I just pull off the bottom as I need herbs for cooking, but sometimes I go to the trouble to pull the dried leaves off and pack them in a bottle or jar.

I love to give the ropes of fresh herbs as gifts, although I’m not sure people like to receive them. Lots of people don’t really cook from scratch, and don’t know what to do with a rope of fresh sage...