This week, I received some news that broke my heart.
For many years, I have followed Jackie and Shadow, the beautiful bald eagles of Big Bear. I watched them return to their nest, prepare it for another season, care for their eggs and raise their young. Year after year, they became a small but treasured part of the rhythm of the seasons for me.
Jackie and Shadow had been together for eight years.
This week, Jackie died.
I was surprised by how deeply I felt the loss of a wild eagle I had never touched and had only known through a camera. But perhaps that is one of the gifts of loving God’s creation. We don’t have to possess something for it to become precious to us.
And then, on that very same day, something happened in my own little corner of the world.
I opened the door to let Candy outside, and from my Vego Garden flew a beautiful black butterfly with yellow markings.
And then another.
Earlier this summer, I had watched black swallowtail caterpillars living and feeding among the plants in that garden. Eventually they disappeared, and I wondered where they had gone.
Now two beautiful butterflies were taking flight from the very place where those little caterpillars had once fed and grown.
I stood there thinking about Jackie.
One beautiful life had ended, while right before my eyes, two others seemed to be beginning a completely new chapter.
It felt like one of those quiet moments when God gently reminds us to look around.
Life has seasons.
There is a time for beginnings and a time for endings. There are moments when we have to say goodbye, even when we aren’t ready. And there are moments when, sometimes unexpectedly, new life unfolds right in front of us.
The butterflies did not take away my sadness over Jackie. They weren’t supposed to.
But they reminded me that sorrow and hope can exist together.
As Christians, we believe that death is not the end of the story. We grieve because we love, but we also live with the promise of resurrection and new life.
Perhaps that is why those two butterflies touched me so deeply.
On a day when I was thinking about a beautiful pair of wings that would no longer return to a familiar nest, I opened my own back door and watched two new pairs of wings rise from my garden.
Sometimes God’s reminders are not loud.
Sometimes they are as gentle as wings.
“Behold, I make all things new.” — Revelation 21:5
🌿 May we notice the quiet reminders of hope God places along our path, especially on the days when our hearts are hurting.
Fresh strawberries, fragrant basil, a squeeze of lime, and sparkling strawberry flavor make this such a refreshing summer drink. It has all the fun of a pretty patio margarita—without the alcohol and without loading it up with sugar.
Sometimes the simplest summer ingredients make the prettiest drinks at the Rosemary Thyme Table. 🍓🌿
Strawberry Basil Margarita Mocktail
Makes 2
Ingredients
4–5 fresh strawberries, hulled
4–5 fresh basil leaves, plus more for garnish
Juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon honey or preferred sweetener, optional
1 bottle Strawberry Sparkling ICE, chilled
Ice
Lime wedges and fresh strawberries, for garnish
For the rim, optional
Lime wedge
A little coarse salt or a salt-and-Swerve mixture
Directions
Add the strawberries, basil leaves, and lime juice to a small glass or measuring cup. Gently muddle until the strawberries release their juices and the basil becomes fragrant.
Taste and add a little honey or sweetener only if the strawberries need it.
If desired, rub a lime wedge around the rims of two glasses and dip them lightly into the rim mixture.
Fill the glasses with ice.
Divide the strawberry-basil mixture between the glasses.
Slowly pour chilled Strawberry Sparkling ICE over each and gently stir.
Garnish with a fresh strawberry, lime wedge, and small sprig of basil.
🌿 Rosemary Thyme Tip: For an extra-pretty summer glass, slice a strawberry and a few basil leaves and tuck them among the ice before adding the sparkling drink.
The Rosemary Thyme Table — Fall in Love with Home Again. 🌿🏡
This week marked a little summertime milestone at our house — the last week for buying tomatoes from the grocery store!
Our first garden tomatoes are coming in, and we’ve been picking them just as they begin to blush and bringing them inside to finish ripening. Now the kitchen is filling with tomatoes in every shade from pale green to golden orange to beautiful garden red.
There’s something so satisfying about growing even a little bit of the food that finds its way to your table. Soon these will be sliced for sandwiches and burgers, tossed into salads, and tucked into some of our favorite summer recipes.
For now, I’m simply enjoying watching them ripen. 🍅💛
Sometimes the simplest pleasures of home are the sweetest ones.
🌿 The Rosemary Thyme Table Fall in Love with Home Again.
From an English chemist’s shop to a bottle in our pantry
There are certain ingredients we use so routinely that we rarely stop to wonder where they came from. Worcestershire sauce is one of them.
A splash goes into meatloaf, burgers, marinades, gravies, soups and sauces, adding that little something you can taste but can’t quite identify.
At our house, it also started a pronunciation debate.
Dennis has long jokingly called it “Wor-Chester sauce.” So one afternoon I finally decided to settle the matter and looked up the proper pronunciation.
As it turns out, all those letters are rather misleading.
British English:WUSS-tuh-shuh American English:WUSS-ter-sher
Both are recognizable pronunciations of Worcestershire, with the British pronunciation dropping even more of those intimidating-looking letters.
Once I had solved that little mystery, another occurred to me:
How did this unusual English sauce come to be in the first place?
And that story turned out to be even more interesting.
From Worcester, England
Worcestershire sauce takes its name from the English county of Worcestershire, and its story begins in the city of Worcester.
In the 1830s, two Worcester chemists, John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins, created a savory condiment that would eventually bear their names.
In 1837, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce went on sale.
The company still produces its famous sauce in Worcester today.
A Sauce That Needed Time
One of the most delightful parts of the story is that Worcestershire sauce wasn’t simply mixed together one afternoon and immediately declared a success.
Time was an essential ingredient.
According to the history told by Lea & Perrins, the mixture was allowed to mature for 18 months. During that long aging process, the ingredients developed the deep and distinctive flavor that would eventually make Worcestershire sauce famous.
Even today, Lea & Perrins says its famous blend takes 18 months to mature.
There’s something wonderfully old-fashioned about that.
Some flavors simply cannot be hurried.
A Little Mystery From India
There’s another intriguing chapter in the Worcestershire story.
The traditional tale says the inspiration for the sauce came to England from India, where British travelers had encountered intensely flavored sauces and condiments.
For years, one version of the story credited a nobleman known as Lord Sandys, who supposedly returned from India wanting a sauce recreated for him.
Historians, however, have questioned parts of that story, particularly claims about Lord Sandys’ supposed position in Bengal.
So while Indian culinary influences very likely played a part in the sauce’s development, some of the colorful details handed down over the years may be a mixture of history and clever 19th-century storytelling.
Kitchen history often comes with a little mystery.
What Makes Worcestershire Sauce Taste Like Worcestershire Sauce?
Worcestershire sauce is difficult to describe because it isn’t simply salty, sweet, sour or savory.
It’s a little of everything.
The familiar Lea & Perrins sauce sold in America contains ingredients including vinegar, molasses, sugar, onion, anchovies, garlic, cloves, tamarind and chili pepper extract, along with other flavorings.
The anchovies provide deep savory flavor. Vinegar contributes acidity. Molasses and sugar add sweetness, while tamarind brings its own distinctive fruity tartness.
Then those flavors are given time to mingle and mature.
Today we have a wonderful word for much of the rich, savory quality Worcestershire brings to food:
Umami.
It helps explain why just a teaspoon or two can make a gravy, burger or meatloaf taste richer without anyone at the table necessarily being able to identify what’s in it.
From Worcester to Kitchens Around the World
Worcestershire sauce didn’t remain a local English curiosity for very long.
By the end of the 1840s, Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce had developed an international reputation and was being exported throughout the British Empire.
Eventually, that distinctive little bottle traveled far beyond England.
Today Worcestershire sauce can be found in kitchens around the world, while the original Lea & Perrins sauce continues to be made in Worcester.
That’s quite a journey for something that began with two English chemists nearly two centuries ago.
The Little Bottle in the Pantry
Perhaps that’s what I enjoy most about kitchen history.
Our kitchens are filled with little connections to people and places we may never have thought about.
A bottle of Worcestershire sauce isn’t just something we shake into a meatloaf or stir into a gravy.
It connects today’s kitchen with two chemists in Worcester nearly two centuries ago, an old-fashioned process of aging and fermentation, ingredients and influences from different parts of the world, and generations of cooks who discovered that just a splash could make dinner taste a little better.
And now that I know its history, I think I’ll appreciate that familiar little bottle a bit more the next time I reach for it.
I will also pronounce it correctly:
WUSS-ter-sher.
Dennis, however, will almost certainly continue to call it “Wor-Chester sauce.”
Some family traditions are apparently harder to change than others. 😂
Rosemary Thyme Kitchen History Stories from the ingredients, dishes and traditions that found their way to our tables.
Rosemary Thyme Table — Fall in Love with Home Again. 🌿
Somewhere between building Rosemary Thyme, taking care of home, and simply keeping up with everyday life, I realized something.
I had stopped reading.
Not because I stopped loving books. I love to read. But reading is one of those quiet pleasures that is so easy to put aside when life gets busy.
So I’ve decided to bring my book back to the bedroom.
Nothing complicated. No reading challenge. No goal for how many books I need to finish this year.
Just a book beside the bed and a little promise to myself:
Phone down. Book open. Day over.
Maybe I’ll read a few chapters. Maybe I’ll only make it through a few pages before my eyes start getting heavy. And honestly, that’s part of the plan. 😂
There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about ending the day with a book instead of a screen.
And perhaps that’s part of falling in love with home again, too—not always adding something new, but rediscovering the simple things we once loved and somehow stopped making time for.
I love having homemade seasoning blends tucked into the pantry, ready whenever I need them. This homemade ranch mix uses organic buttermilk powder and plenty of herbs for that familiar ranch flavor — but I leave the salt out completely so I can control the sodium in whatever I’m making.
Add all of the ingredients to a bowl and whisk until thoroughly combined.
For a finer ranch-seasoning texture, pulse briefly in a small food processor or spice grinder.
Transfer the mixture to a clean, dry airtight jar.
Label and date the jar, and store according to the directions on your buttermilk powder package.
To Use
Start with about 2 tablespoons in place of one standard packet of ranch seasoning and adjust to taste.
Use it for homemade ranch dressing and dips, roasted vegetables, potatoes, chicken and so much more. And because there’s no salt added to the mix, you get to decide exactly how much goes into your finished dish. 🌿
If you like this recipe, please click Like and leave me a comment! I’d love to know how you would use your homemade ranch seasoning. 💛
The Rosemary Thyme Table Fall in Love with Home Again. 🌿🏡
The tomato harvest has officially made its way from the garden to the kitchen! 🍅
After watching trays of garden tomatoes slowly ripening on the Rosemary Thyme Table, I knew some of them were destined for a pot of homemade tomato soup.
This version is simple, wholesome and made without cream. Roasting the tomatoes first brings out their natural sweetness, while carrots add a little extra body and help balance the acidity. I use no-salt-added chicken broth so I can control the sodium, too.
And since Dennis avoids onion and garlic, I can simply leave those out. There is still plenty of wonderful flavor from the roasted tomatoes and herbs. 🌿
Roasted Garden Tomato Soup
Ingredients • 3 lbs ripe garden tomatoes, quartered • 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil • 2 medium carrots, sliced • 1 medium onion, chopped — optional • 3–4 garlic cloves — optional • 2 cups no-salt-added chicken broth, plus more if needed • 1 tsp dried basil or 1 tbsp fresh basil • 1 tsp dried thyme or several fresh thyme sprigs • ½ tsp dried oregano — optional • ¼ tsp black pepper • 1 tsp honey or preferred sweetener — optional • 1–2 tsp fresh lemon juice • Salt, only if desired after tasting
Directions
1. Roast the vegetables. Heat oven to 425°F. Place tomatoes and carrots on a large rimmed baking sheet along with the onion and garlic, if using. Drizzle with olive oil and toss gently.
Roast for 35–45 minutes, until the tomatoes have collapsed and the edges begin to caramelize. Save every bit of those wonderful juices!
2. Simmer. Transfer the roasted vegetables and juices to a soup pot. Add 2 cups chicken broth, basil, thyme, oregano and black pepper.
Simmer gently for about 15 minutes.
3. Blend. Puree with an immersion blender until smooth. Add a little additional broth if you’d like a thinner soup.
4. Finish. Stir in the fresh lemon juice and taste. If your tomatoes are particularly tart, add just a little honey or sweetener to round out the flavor.
No cream needed—the roasted vegetables make this soup beautifully smooth all on their own. 🍅🥣
And perhaps the best part? It freezes beautifully. I’m planning to tuck some away so we can enjoy a little taste of our summer garden when the cold days arrive. 🍂❄️
From garden to table…and a few bags into the freezer. That’s my kind of harvest. 🌿🍅💛
🍅 Roasted Garden Tomato Sauce — From the Garden to the Freezer 🌿
One of my favorite things to make with an abundance of garden tomatoes is homemade roasted tomato sauce.
And I don’t think of tomato sauce as something that’s only for pasta! I freeze mine in portions and use it all winter long in everything from chili and soups to stews, casseroles, pizza and so many of our everyday meals.
Roasting the tomatoes first concentrates their flavor and gives the sauce a wonderful richness. I add olive oil and plenty of Italian herbs—and whether my tomatoes are particularly acidic or not, I almost always add a little honey. 🍯😀 I love the subtle balance it gives the tomatoes.
You can blend this sauce until it’s beautifully smooth or leave it a little chunky and rustic. And there’s no peeling or seeding tomatoes around here! 😂
🍅 Roasted Garden Tomato Sauce
Ingredients • 5 lbs ripe garden tomatoes • 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil • 1 tsp dried basil • 1 tsp dried oregano • ½ tsp dried thyme • ½ tsp dried rosemary, crushed • ½ tsp dried parsley • ¼ tsp black pepper • ½ tsp kosher salt, optional • 1 tsp honey 🍯 • Fresh basil or parsley, optional • ½ onion and 3–4 garlic cloves, optional
Directions
Heat oven to 425°F. Wash and core the tomatoes. Quarter large tomatoes and halve smaller ones.
Arrange on rimmed baking sheets. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with the Italian herbs and black pepper. Add onion and garlic if desired.
Roast for 40–55 minutes, or until the tomatoes are very soft, lightly caramelized and some of their liquid has cooked away.
Transfer the tomatoes and all those wonderful roasting juices to a Dutch oven or large saucepan.
For a chunky sauce, mash or briefly blend with an immersion blender. For a smooth sauce, blend thoroughly.
Simmer uncovered over low heat for 15–30 minutes, until the sauce reaches the thickness you like.
Stir in the honey, taste and adjust the seasonings. Finish with fresh basil or parsley if you’d like.
Cool and freeze in meal-size portions. I like 2-cup portions because they’re so easy to grab whenever a recipe needs tomato sauce.
There is something awfully satisfying about reaching into the freezer in the middle of winter and pulling out a little taste of last summer’s garden. 🍅🌿❄️
Helene Rosemary Thyme 🌿😊 Fall in Love with Home Again 💛🏠
There is something especially satisfying about walking
out to the garden, picking ripe tomatoes, and turning them into something delicious for the table.
Today, those beautiful garden tomatoes became Fresh Garden Tomato Salsa—bright, simple and full of fresh summer flavor. And there’s no need to peel the tomatoes!
Fresh Garden Tomato Salsa
Ingredients
* 4 cups fresh garden tomatoes, diced
* ¼ cup finely diced red or sweet onion, optional
* 1 small garlic clove, finely minced, optional
* ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
* 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
* 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
* ½ teaspoon ground cumin
* ¼ teaspoon salt, or to taste
* ½ teaspoon honey or sweetener, optional
* 1 small jalapeño, seeded and finely minced, optional
* 2 tablespoons sliced scallion greens or fresh chives, optional
Directions
1. Dice the tomatoes and place them in a colander for 10–15 minutes if they are especially juicy.
2. Combine the tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, lemon juice, cumin and salt.
3. Add the onion, garlic and jalapeño if you like them—or use scallion greens or fresh chives for a gentler flavor.
4. Taste the salsa. If your tomatoes are a little tart, add just a touch of honey or your favorite sweetener.
5. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes before serving to give all those fresh flavors a chance to come together.
Serve it with tortilla chips, spoon it over grilled chicken or fish, add it to tacos and burritos—or just grab a chip and enjoy it straight from the bowl.
Fresh garden tomatoes really don’t need much help. Sometimes the simplest recipes are the ones that taste the most like summer.
If you enjoy easy homemade recipes like this one, please give it a and leave me a comment. I love hearing from you!
🦋 The Rosemary Thyme Butterfly Nursery — A New Generation 🌿
Today, a beautiful female black swallowtail came fluttering into the Rosemary Thyme garden.
I watched her moving quickly from plant to plant and wondered if she might be looking for a place to lay her eggs.
So after she flew away, I went looking.
And there they were. 💛
One tiny pearl-like egg…then another…and another.
Four so far! 🦋
Earlier this summer, we watched black swallowtail caterpillars make their home among the herbs. They ate, grew, and eventually disappeared to begin their remarkable transformation.
Could today’s visitor have been one of those little caterpillars returning to the garden where her own story began? There’s no way to know for certain.
But I like to think it’s possible. 💛
And now, tucked among the green leaves, another generation is beginning.
I’ll be watching these four tiny eggs closely and sharing their journey as they hatch, grow, and — hopefully — someday spread their own wings.
There is something even more remarkable about watching these black swallowtails when you realize how quickly their little lives unfold. 🐛🌿🦋 After hatching from a tiny egg, a black swallowtail spends roughly two to four weeks as a caterpillar, eating, growing, and shedding its skin several times along the way. Then, when it is finally ready, it does something that had me wondering where all of my caterpillars had gone—it simply wanders away from the parsley and herbs in search of a safe, sheltered place to form its chrysalis.
Me: “Where are you going?” Caterpillar: “I’d rather not say.” 😂🐛 And then… 🦋
In warm summer weather, it will usually remain tucked inside that chrysalis for about 10 to 20 days before emerging as a beautiful butterfly. And perhaps the most bittersweet part is that the adult butterfly generally has only two to four weeks to flutter among the flowers, drink nectar, find a mate, and begin the whole cycle again. Knowing that makes those few minutes when one visits the garden feel even more precious. What looked like a simple butterfly stopping by was actually one small chapter in an extraordinary transformation I was lucky enough to witness right here at home. 🌿🦋💛
The Rosemary Thyme Butterfly Nursery is officially open again. 🦋🌿💛
Rosemary Thyme Table – Fall in Love with Home Again.
Fresh Garden Tomato Salsa
and leave me a comment. I love hearing from you!
