Herb gar­dens are going crazy all over town and we want you to make use of that bounty in every meal. Here we present a series of recipes and ideas for putting all those deli­cious plants to good use.

With an aroma that fills the yard when you brush against it, lemon thyme, is the most deli­ciously fra­grant herb in the gar­den. It’s lemony grassy scent is so refresh­ing and sub­tle one is tempted to turn it into a perfume.

This herb grows up nice and bushy, it suits hang­ing planters per­fectly but can spill out of a terra cotta pot on the ground just as eas­ily too. Thymol, an essen­tial oil found in thyme, is the main active ingre­di­ent in Listerine mouthwash.

The leaves just need to be stripped from the stem, no chop­ping required, before adding to sal­ads, soups, egg dishes and espe­cially pastas.

Lemon thyme is the per­fect fin­ish­ing touch to a sim­ple mac­a­roni & cheese or spaghetti and meat­balls but my favourite pasta dish of all time would not be com­plete with­out this herb.

This dish, made famous at Kingston’s pop­u­lar Chez Piggy restau­rant, has only six ingre­di­ents and is moron­i­cally sim­ple to throw together.

Don’t let it’s sim­plic­ity fool you, the end result is greater than the sum of its parts. Want to impress the in-laws? Cooking for your lady friend for the first time? Just walked out of a cave into the bright lights of the mod­ern world never hav­ing cooked any­thing in your entire life?

This is the recipe for you.

Linguine with Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup sun-dried toma­toes, rehy­drated in water & chopped

1 1/2 cups 35% cream

1/2 cup brandy

3 Tbsp but­ter, chilled & chopped

1 lb. lin­guine cooked & drained

fresh lemon thyme leaves

Steps

1. Mix toma­toes, cream and brandy in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.
2. Simmer over medium-high heat until reduced by half.
3. Season with salt and pep­per to taste. Whisk in but­ter just before serving.
4. Toss with hot pasta and gar­nish with a sprink­ing of fresh lemon thyme leaves.