homemade oregano

It is unbelievable how profusely and quickly the ajwain/oregano plant is growing! Something had to be done. I didn't want the leaves to grow yellow and wilt! And since the cooking experiments with fresh leaves didn't really work for us, drying the leaves seemed a good option. I do it for other herbs, too, but these leaves are thick and have a lot of water and needed a different approach. 

I snipped off a few twigs, rinsed and dabbed them dry on a kitchen towel. And plucked off each leaf.   

Time for the microwave. Placed the leaves flat on a stoneware dish. At 30%, nuke them for 2 mins, flip, repeat. Do it 1 or 2 times more till the leaves are completely dry. Tweak the time as required. Within a few minutes the entire bunch was dry and crispy.

TIP: In fact we can nuke and flip them twice, then gather the semi-dry leaves and after all batches are similarly done, gather all those leaves and give  or 2 final nukes till completely dry and crispy. Saves time and effort.

Crumble and store in air-tight container. I used an empty herb bottle. 

The one on the left is from my previous batch on the hot girdle. I was experimenting with about 8 -10 leaves and followed this Foods and Flavors video on How to make oregano seasoning - https://youtu.be/Zp6k29TSuSo (from 1.00 min onwards) She places each leaf on a warm flat girdle, flipping them frequently. It is fine for a limited number of leaves. But cumbersome for a bunch of twigs laden with leaves.

The colour is darker but would need to be made in small batches; each batch requiring the almost the same amount of time as the mirco-wave ones, along with constant vigil.

I've used the powder in salads, etc. and hubby likes it! Yay!

And this is how the plant is after 10 days! On the right you can see the the snipped twigs, while on the left the leaves are ready for picking and drying.