Love that lovage!

What Do I Do With Lovage?

This week in our Good Earth Food Alliance CSA share we provided a vegetable called lovage.  According to Old Fashioned Living, "Lovage is a very old herb with properties perfect for today's healthy lifestyles. It's unique flavor, which is a combination of anise and celery, can be used as a salt substitute, plus it gives extra flavor to vegetarian soups and stews as well. You can use it much like you would celery or parsley, but with a lighter hand since it does have a stronger flavor. Lovage works well in potato and tomato dishes, or anything in the starch category. Every part of the plant is edible!"

One part of buying into a share of the farm includes a willingness to sample the foods that the farm families have cooking in pots on their stoves.  Although you won't find lovage at most grocery stores, three of the GEFA farms grow lovage and are accustomed to cooking with it this time of year.  For starters, add a teaspoon of fresh minced lovage to your chicken soup recipe during the last 15 or 20 minutes of cooking. You can also add it to chilled tomato soups.  Add one to two tablespoons of minced fresh lovage to your meatloaf recipes. 

Check out our listing of recipes for Egg Salad with Herbs or Potato and Lovage Soup and see if you don't find that you, too, love that lovage!