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| Our tiny patch says, Merry Meet! |
Mang Gener, our neighbor who’s a great {and often
inebriated} gardener, went back to the South(ern Philippines) and left us with beautiful
pots of herbs. One of them is oregano, an herb that grows well even with a
person like me around who kills every green thing I touch. We placed it at the
atrium where it gets good sunlight and where we feed it “good food” every day.
Everything’s been fine so far. Our oregano plant has flourished and is growing
very fast producing more leaves than I know what to do with. Everything needs
to be fine! Hazardous as I am with plants, I love them with all my heart.
We are growing our tiny garden one pot at a time. We started
urban farming when Attika was barely a year old, but we lived in a penthouse
and the winds from Laguna de Bay were just as murderous as I was. This time, I am seriously meditating day after day just so I’d grow a
green thumb. Where I got the idea that you could develop green thumb escapes me
now. Maybe I made it up.
I keep boxes of different kinds of teas in our cupboard and
my goal now is to replace most, if not all, with fresh produce from our tiny
green patch and we’ve started with oregano. My tea press was just sitting
around, probably hating its teabag neighbors, but that has changed over the
last few weeks. I’ve made mugs of fresh oregano tea, and I’m not going to
pretend and say I jumped for joy the first time I tasted it. I’ve been using oregano
in most of my dishes, but I’ve never had it fresh as a cup of tea. The
discontent of my tongue only lasted a few sips though. My palate warmed up to
it when I got halfway down my mug. A few minutes later, I started burping, and
boy, that felt good! A happy tummy makes a mommy happy.
Make your own fresh oregano tea and enjoy the benefits.
You can use dried oregano leaves, but nothing beats fresh
herbs. Oregano is a member of the mint family and it could be bitter depending
on how much oregano you use and how long you infuse it. When I tried it the
first time I just used three mature leaves. I wasn’t sure about its taste and I
found out that three leaves were enough for my 8-ounce press. If you want it
stronger just add more oregano and chop them. You can also stir in a teaspoon of honey if you’re
a sweet tea kind of person. I take a spoonful of honey especially when I feel
like I’m going down with something, but I never use them in my teas.
It’s been quite a while and I’m sticking to my 3-oregano
leaf, no-brainer concoction. Tell me how yours went if you decide to try it.
