Project: Drying Parsley

I was so focused on my sad, blighty tomatoes I forgot to mention the success of my parsley.

An over-abundance actually.

I had so much I didn't know what to do with it. I couldn't re-plant it on the balcony because it's full of chive, mint, and tomato plants. Like, full. So I decided to dry it.

I looked up a few recipes/how-to's online and realized there is no one way to do it. So I took the one I trusted the most (read: not microwaved) and tried it out. Oh, it was also the quickest.

The instructions I chose (sorry I don't have the link but it's probably E-How or something) said to use a "cooling oven" to dry the parsley after blanching for 20 seconds in boiling water.

The instructions also said it wouldn't take long (didn't say a time just that it would all happen quickly).

In hindsight I realize I needed to know how hot the oven should have been before cooling for this "quick" process to happen. I had been cooking tater tots at a low temperature so "cooling" wasn't a long process and made virtually zero impact on the drenched, blanched parsley.

Anyway, so I ended up turning the oven on to the lowest setting and spread the parsley out quite thin on cookie sheets. It worked but it took two hours at least. Ages.

I am happy with the dried parsley, but for the past couple weeks while I've crushed it up (when I have time, I'm not slave to the kitchen) I've been picking the stems out of the mess.

So there we go.

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