It's still not Spring here in Philadelphia. In fact, it's currently about 50 and rainy, but I've been pretending that Spring is here by planning my imaginary herb garden. Yes, my herb garden is sadly imaginary since I'm moving this year, but as a result, it's actually much greener, fragrant and exciting than any live herb garden I've ever grown for real (my thumb is not the greenest one out there). I mean, I love rosemary and mint as much as the next person, but I'm ready for a little more excitement! Here's what I'm thinking:

Chocolate Mint - I tasted this for the first time recently at a Farmer's Market, and it was delicious. The chocolate taste is slight, but definitely there, and I'll definitely be using it for imaginary iced tea, or even in cupcakes and baked goods.

Lemon Thyme - How easy it will be to make a roast chicken or even lemon-thyme frosting with these two ingredients already combined into one! Just kidding -- you apparently can't really count on it for a full lemon flavor, but it still works great for roasting anything, and for great fish and meat dishes as well.

Cuban Basil - The belle of my garden. After seeing/smelling how delightful these leaves are, I couldn't resist buying some for my mom for mother's day. Not so much into it? Check out this long list of interesting basil varieties here.

Lavender - Maybe this would be in my grandmother's garden too, but I just love the scent so much that it's going in my imaginary one as well.

Looking for more exciting herbs like juniper or fenugreek? Check out this list and these hints and tips. And if anyone has suggestions for additions to my imaginary garden, please share! It's imaginary, so no there are no limits!

The other day, I blogged about my awesome Big Book of Backyard Cooking. In the review, I mysteriously mentioned my favorite iced tea recipe, but I didn't want to go into detail until I could share pictures of all the tasty ingredients. So, over the weekend I ran to the store twice (because I lazily didn't check my food supply before going the first time), and whipped up a nice batch of my absolute favorite iced beverage: Julep Iced Tea.

Instead of bourbon, which keeps many a folk sauced at the Kentucky Derby, this recipe uses a super-potent batch of English Breakfast tea. It takes a little more effort than your usual iced tea, but it's well worth the effort. Julep Iced Tea is super tasty, with that immediate kick of fresh mint and the sweet, sugary aftertaste of lemony tea. Check out the recipe after the jump and the gallery below.

I like to make up salads. It's one of things I happen to be good at, especially fruit salads. One that I haven't gotten around to trying yet is the strawberry mint salad that's been bouncing around my head lately. But my slowness is your gain. This would be a great fruit dish to serve with all of the egg and bread and breakfast meat options that are sure to be on the table.

Simply cut the stems off the strawberries and cut them in half or quarters, after washing them thoroughly of course. Chop up a bunch of fresh mint leaves and toss together with the strawberries. Drizzle the mixture with some balsamic vinegar, and voila. Quantities are hard to say. I'd do a tablespoon or so of chopped mint per pint of berries. Balsamic vinegar is completely to taste.

It sits alone and untouched at the end of a long buffet table -- a bowl full of apples and bananas, maybe a seedy orange tossed in as an afterthought. Don't let your fruit salad meet this awful fate, spruce it up instead!

Whether it's for iced coffee or a party, here are some fun things you can do with ice cubes.

I have always been a sucker for anything mint flavored. I go through phases where I drink mint tea by the gallon. I always have mint gum in my bag. And I am capable of eating mint chocolate chip ice cream by the carton (and on many occasions, I have). When I first came across a display of Metromint at my local gourmet grocery store, I immediately pick up a bottle to go with the panini I was buying for lunch. It was perfect with the sandwich, refreshing and cool, with a significant tingle of mint.

The good folks at Metromint have recently added Chocolatemint to the three flavors they already had available (Spearmint, Lemonmint and Orangemint). According to Josh Spear, this water is delicious and leaves you with the taste of chocolate long after the water is gone (and for far fewer calories). Chocolatemint should be in stores in time for Valentine's Day.

[via Josh Spear]

I saw a recipe in my Williams-Sonoma Entertaining Cookbook for a Blended Mojito and thought it would be a fantastic way to say "Hasta luego!" to the summer (or "Bienvenidos!" to an Indian Summer). Blended with ice, it works as a refresher. However, it's a mojito.

For as long as I could, I tried to stay away from the mojito craze that swept bars and cocktail parties across the country for the last few years. Part of the reason is that I consider myself "allergic" to anything too trendy, and if you weren't drinking a mojito, who are you? Well, you should all know by now that mojitos are soooo 2006. In fact, if you're caught drinking a mojito, you'll be ridiculed for having been living under an overturned martini glass for the last two years. With the popularity of mojitos gone, I am now starting to enjoy the drink.

I used to love candy -- anything sweet, for that matter -- and chocolate candy bars were something that I would eat daily. However, in recent years, I haven't been as obsessive about chocolate (I know! Someone is going to have my head for that!) I realize that chocolate now has health benefits, and no doubt, I much prefer the darker varieties of chocolate to milk chocolate, but maybe that's why it's not fun to eat anymore. The naughtiness of chocolate is gone.

For the last two weeks, I have been overdosing on chocolate. Having one candy bar a day to do a bunch of taste tests was some serious overdosage. I will talk about the rest through the week, but for this Sunday afternoon, let's dive into the newest addition to the Three Musketeers family: Three Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate.

All across the country, zucchini and other summer squashes are taking over garden patches. They double in size overnight, leaving home cooks pondering new ways to use them up so that their families don't say to them, "You mean we're having squash? Again?"

The following recipe has captured my attention as a terrific way to use a lot of your zucchini. It fancies up your basic grilled squash, and, coupled with a protein and a grain salad, would make a terrific meal. The grilling of the squash could be done outside, on a stove-top grill pan or even on a large George Foreman.

Even as a kid I was never much of a pop/soda drinker, but I've always had a little love affair with iced tea. Whether it was powdered, bottled, or freshly homemade - it never mattered to me as long as I had some. Needless to say, when I saw that Stash had released a line of Iced Green Teas in powder form, I was pretty excited.

Though I haven't tried them yet, the four different varieties look pretty enticing - they come in Blueberry Green Tea, Mint Green Tea, regular Green Tea or lightly sweetened Green Tea. Has anyone out there tried them? If so, let us know what you think.

Not that I would ever turn down a real mojito, but if for some reason I had to eat a dessert instead of drinking a cocktail, I'd love this Mojito Cupcake, from food blog Vegan Yum Yum. The recipe in on the blog post, but as a summary, the cake is a modified version of the golden vanilla cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Soymilk was infused with traditional mojito flavors, mint and lime juice, rum and lime zest were added to the batter, and the frosting wass flavored with dark rum. The natural garnish is, of course, a wedge of lime (though a sprig of mint would be pretty, too!)

I was at a local food event today which show cased regional and local food products made by small / family businesses and farms. Every now and then I run across a product so good I have to share the news. The Bombay Emerald Chutney Company has not just one, but five great products. Their gourmet line of "Royal" Chutneys are fantastic: Royal Mint Chutney, Royal Tomato Chutney, Royal Plum Chutney, Royal Cranberry Chutney, and their new Royal Pomegranate Chutney. It's a Mom and Pop company who make their chutney by hand from their own family recipes using all natural ingredients that they personally buy themselves, and they have no preservatives.

My favorite is the Mint Chutney, made from Coriander, Lime Juice, Mint Leaves, Green Chilies, Salt & Spices. You would think that from such few and simple ingredients the flavor would be simple, but it's not. It has a very complex taste with just the right balance between the tangy lime, fresh mint, salt, and a nice but not lethal dose of spices. The Tomato Chutney has a very solid, summer ripe tomato presence, with the lemon, spices, salt, and cilantro bringing it all together.

Dark Chocolate Dipped Altoids sounded so good after reading Joe's initial review that I decided to keep an eye out for them while shopping. Target seems to be a veritable gold mine of new and limited edition candies, so it didn't surprise me when I saw a box near the checkout and picked them up.

At least, I thought I saw a box of the candies I was looking for. I didn't discover that I picked up a tin of Dark Chocolate Dipped Cinnamon Altoids instead until I took a closer look at the package later that day. I'm not a big fan of cinnamon candies in general, but I have to admit that the chocolate-coated cinnamon Altoids were pretty addictive. The chocolate was not too sweet and melted fairly easily in my mouth, cutting the normally sharp cinnamon flavor substantially and leaving behind an almost Mexican chocolate-type flavor.

I still haven't had a chance to sample the regular chocolate covered Altoids, but I think I'll be satisfied with my accidental purchase for a while yet.

Ice cream in the winter - why not? It's warm indoors, so there is no reason not to indulge in a frozen treat. This Peppermint Ice Cream was made by Elise, of Simply Recipes. She made the ice cream base herself and flavored it with some peppermint extract before folding in crushed up candy canes. The advantage, as Elise points out, to making the ice cream base yourself is not just in the fact that you can flavor it in any way you see fit, but that you know exactly what you are getting and aren't limited to what you can buy at the store. For example, there are no emulsifiers or preservatives in homemade ice cream, so even though it is very rich and contains a generous number of egg yolks that provide the "divinely creamy" texture, you can still feel good about eating it.

I suspect that this ice cream would also make fantastic ice cream sandwiches if softened and spread in between two chocolate chip cookies.

For a foodie, especially a Slashfoodie, one of the best things about winter is that it signifies a changing of the guard, so to speak, when it comes to produce. Apples, pears and citrus replace the berries and melons of summer, opening up a whole new season of possibilities. Capogiro Gelato expresses all these possibilities with their seasonally changing menu, now geared up for winter. I was fortunate enough to sample some of the flavors from their summer line earlier this year and, this week, had the opportunity to indulge in a few of their winter offerings, as well.

While they still have their classic Italian and chocolate flavors available, Capogiro's holiday table menu is extensive, including Apple Cider with Clove Sorbetto, Castagne (Chestnut) Gelato, Cannella di Saigon (Cinnamon) and Melograno (Pomegranate). The flavors I tried were Zucca (Lancaster County Neck Pumpkin), Apple Cider with Clove, Sweet Potato with Pecan Praline, Meyer Lemon with Vodka, Moro (Blood Orange) and Pure King Leo Stracciatella.