Drying Oregano for Long-Term Storage--Finishing the Process

Once your oregano is dry, it's time to process it!  If you didn't already do that, click here to find out how I typically dry my oregano.  Then come back to this post, which is also linked from that post at the end.  :)

If you don't want to click over, here are a few pictures of a newly picked batch of oregano.  I didn't hang these sprigs to dry, as I did with my first, smaller batch.  There was just too much.  I am letting these dry on a large, clean beach towel in my basement, and I turn bunches of sprigs over every few days or so until they're really dry and ready to process.  See here:

Harvest the sprigs of oregano.

Wash the sprigs thoroughly with cold/cool water.

I arranged all the sprigs on a large, clean beach towel to dry in the basement.

Now on to the second part of the storage process!

Here are my dry bundles of oregano that I hung in the basement:

I untied all the bundles and brought them up to my kitchen.  Then I removed the dried leaves from the stems--I hold the base of the stem with one hand, pulling the stem through two fingers and a thumb of my other hand.  The leaves go into a bowl; the stems get discarded.

Time for my awesome Braun stick blender!  It has a blender cup for blending, among other things, herbs, of course!

I fill the cup pretty full, as you can see, and blend that quantity with several pulses, until it's the consistency I want.  You can get it blended pretty finely, or more coarse--it's up to you!

I use a canning funnel with a quart-sized canning jar.  I just pour the chopped leaves into the jar.

Doesn't look like a lot, huh?  That's why recipes always call for less dried herbs than they do fresh.  However, this is a great way to save freezer space!  This jar is in my "bomb shelter" space in our basement.  I'm hoping to get enough oregano for the entire year, and with that second batch of oregano you saw above in this post, maybe I'll just do that!


Back to life,
Christine

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