Kitchen Lover's Essentials

I'm not sure why but I'm obsessed with kitchen-related stuff. I have a lovely collection of knives, half of which I'll probably never use because they're for chopping meat or cheese or something. Then there's my small but reliable spices and my lovely collection of vinegars and oils. But there's nothing I love more than my jars and my herbs. They are, what I would consider, any kitchen lover's essentials.

Let's talk about herbs! I don't have an awful lot of room in my kitchen (student living, yay!) so I only have room for a few herb plants. Right now, I have chives (Mr. Clive), mint (Mrs. Molly), oregano (Mr. Ollie) and basil (Mr. Billy). I sometimes like to buy parsley or thyme to replace the chive as I find Mr. Clive is super messy and grows in all kinds of crazy directions. I can't keep up with his personality.

Basil is the one herb I couldn't live without. I use basil almost everyday in something.

Other herbs I'm very interested in growing myself some day are sage, dill and tarragon. I buy frozen herbs for some of the ones I don't use as often such as coriander and rosemary. They're useful to keep around in the freezer and they're very cheap.

When it comes to jars, I love organising them and filling them with different types of rice, pasta, wheats and pulses. So far, I have lentils, wholewheat fusilli dried pasta, basmati rice, giant couscous, regular couscous, jasmine rice, risotto rice, sushi rice, bulgar wheat and porridge oats.

A clever trick is attaching a ribbon and a tag to the jars to write on them what they are and their best before dates.