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Matteo has decided to offer a one day only sale on Thursday April 26 2012.  We are having our very first Open House that day, so Matteo has decided to offer a great deal or aka (great dill) on gift certificates.

If you buy a $100.00 certificate on thursday 4-26-12 you get a free $20.00 gift certificate for you. It can’t be used the same day but like all gift certificates they never expire or run out.

So stop down on this Thursday April 26 2012 and have some herb related food and beverage and shop at the greenhouse, buy some pansies, or grab a really great deal on a gift certificates.

Thank you in advance for coming.

Matteo

Sage aka Salvia is a perennial herb that blooms a beautiful purplish blue flower that is a magnet to bees and butterflies, Grows about 2 feet tall and 24 inches wide and comes in many shapes and colors.  Matteo’s offers the Tricolor Sage, Golden Sage, Bergarten Sage, and Pineapple Sage (we will get to that one by itself) So lets focus on the three other varieties. Golden and Tricolor have the same flavor, but add color to your garden or planters, I like to use these when making Cheese Ravioli’s with Sage Butter Sauce because you can leave the leaves whole and they are the perfect size and add color to the dish.

Cheese Ravioli's with Sage Butter Sauce

CHEESE RAVIOLI WITH SAGE BUTTER SAUCE

1 bag of frozen cheese ravioli

half of stick of salted butter

1/2 cup of Sage leaves (whole or chopped)

1/4 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil  – measure by sight

1.) Cook ravioli as directed – drain and set a side

2.) In pot, melt butter, olive oil and Sage leaves.  Simmer 2 minutes

3.) Add ravioli, mix and serve immediately

That recipe is also good if you add vegetables like peas, carrots, green beans, asparagus, corn, anything small that you enjoy works well and be creative with it also.

But my all time favorite as well as anyone that tries them are Matteo’s Fried Sage Leaves with Panko bread crumbs.

Fried Sage Leaves

Clusters of Golden and Tricolor Sage or Bergarten Leaves with the stem as handles

Whisk egg whites till stiff, dip leaf in egg white, then cover in Panko bread crumbs and then fry on high in Vegetable oil for 5 seconds on each side or until golden brown. Remove on to paper towel and dust with Sea Salt. Serve Hot.

3 Steps to Fried Sage Leaves, Matteo style

Notice that there is a beer in the picture, all great chefs like Julia Child drink while the cook.  My favorite saying from Julia Child is in her voice “I love to cook with wine and sometimes I even put it in the food”

So stiff egg whites, panko bread crumbs and hot vegetable oil not to be substituted.

Sage leaves dipped in Panko Bread Crumbs

These steps can be done by one person, but more fun with two or more.

Some people work well with others in the kitchen and others don’t. I like to cook with people that are congenial, if you can have some one dipping the leaves in the egg whites and then breading them and placing in oil then someone else can flip and remove to a tray with paper towels to cool and then season each layer as they are finished.

Fresh fried Sage leaves cooling on paper towels

The best part of these are that you can make them ahead of time even a couple days ahead and place them in foil packs of 10-20 and pull them as you need them, just heat them up on the grill or in the oven at 275 for 10 minutes or till they are toasty hot.

Wrapping packs of Fried Sage Leaves.

Don’t be afraid to invite me to your next party to help you with the cooking, Matteo is also adding Catering and Private Parties to the venue here at the Greenhouse. Call with any questions 814-532-6288 or my cell 814-262-8570.

Enjoy! and Bon appetite!!

I must say that I love to talk way more than I love to type, but I know that this is a must.

Basil, it is by far one of my Most Favorite of all the herbs, and it should be.  Earlier this year, like in January, I was in Pittsburgh, and went to Whole Foods, (you got to love that place) I bought some basil and it made me think of spring and all the foods I use with it.

Large leaf Italian Basil

I love basil for the fact that there are some many varieties and they all have that basil taste with some complimented by other flavors such as anise or lemon or pepper.  I could go on and on about the flavors but lets talk about the wonderful benefits about what it is good for; make into tea to aid in digestion, colds and influenza, nausea, abdominal cramps, insomnia. Externally for acne, insect stings, skin infections, and the Number 1 reason it repels insects and especially Mosquito’s. Older Italians would always place a leaf behind there ear to keep insects away and kept in ones pocket to attract money and keep a lover faithful

African Blue Basil aka Kasar

African Blue Basil is one of my favorites because of the color of the underneath of the leaves and the beautiful blooms they’re pink and white on a purple stem, it compliments a tomato and mozzarella salad

Tomato mozzarella with basil blooms

Use basil as an eye wash for tired eyes, the scent of the essential oil to gain a second wind when fatigued.  Essential oil is also used in massage oils for sore muscles, burn the dried herbs as an antiseptic incense. Basil is used as a bath herb for energy.

Spicy Globe aka Compactum

Purple Ruffles Basil

Lemon Basil

Siam Queen aka Thai Basil

Cinnamon Basil

Enormous or Lettuce Leaf Bail

This last one is Lettuce Leaf Basil and it has the same flavor as the Large Leaf Italian Sweet Basil but what happens is when the Sweet Basil that everyone knows as Normal Basil, what happens is when it gets large it gets leathery. So Lettuce Leaf Basil has the same flavor and looks but it stays tender like a lettuce leaf.

If you look closely you will notice that some of the pictures of the basil has blooms on them, there is an old wives tale out there telling people to pinch these blooms so that your basil bushes out more and part of that is true, except that THERE IS MORE FLAVOR IN THE BLOOMS THAN IN THE LEAVES, SO YOU CAN USE LESS BASIL BY USING THE BLOOMS THAN BY USING THE LEAVES!!!!! If I have anything important to say about basil that would be the most important.

Here at Matteo’s I feel the heat,  We all do, especially when it’s in the upper 80′s even into the 90′s outside.  The heat is really bad in the greenhouses even when the fans are running on high. This was just one reading

One Thermometer reading 114

So when I think of Hot weather I think of Drinks! And I know alcoholic drinks make you sweat more (from experience) but that is just what I think of, is to reach for a cocktail.

Compari and Tonic over ice with a lime

So a cocktail at a greenhouse? Sure!  Matteo’s can’t be called “The Hippest Hothouse in the West End” without serving cocktails. (Of course we don’t serve under age, we don’t charge, so you have to be a customer that is here to shop and not just come for the free alcohol) that is my fine print disclosure. ha ha!!

So Matteo’s wants to be set apart from all the other greenhouses in the area, how does one go about that task? Yes I want to have the best service and most friendly staff, I want to have the most herbs and perennials around, I want to be the place where people come to learn more about the herbs and how to cook with, and use them.  I try to do all of these things, but sometimes that’s just not enough!

Matteo will sometimes ask would you like an adult beverage, beer, wine; red or white, maybe a cocktail.  Husbands especially like the thought of letting the wife shop and have a drink while he waits.  Most recently discovered that with all the herbs Matteo makes you sample, having a drink helps to wash them all down or cleanse your pallet.

So why not gather up your coworkers and come down to Matteo’s Herbs Galore at 139 C Street, Johnstown, and have a afterwork cocktail with Matteo and sample some herbs.

Aperol Spritz

Matteo aka Matthew Myers is from Johnstown, I graduated from Westmont Hilltop in 1996 and I hated school so bad that I never wanted to go to college.  I wanted to start in the world and work for a living, or so I thought, no kidding.  I was in sales and the  restaurant business for most of my years till my friend Marc, wanted to show me a business that was once his passion and he knew that I would like it too.  In 2008 we started Matteo’s Herbs Galore in Jeannette Pa at the Duncan True Value Hardware Store. Owners Ken and Robyn Terwilliger helped level off a piece of their land so I could build a greenhouse 15×56 on it.  (We all have to start somewhere.)  We could only fit about 4000 quart size plants in at one time, we filled and emptied it 4 times. So 16,000 plants later and a good first year I found that I had a new love, and passion for herbs and the sales of them.  Because anyone can raise plants but can you sell them? I could.

Jumping ahead I felt the leading of the Lord to move back to Johnstown, where I thought I would never come back to.  But as most of us do, I moved back and I thought it was to help my 99 year old grandmother who needed 24 hour care. I was the night shift with grandma for the last 2 and a half moths of her life. I moved back in November of 2008 and on January 22, 2009 she went home to meet Jesus.

My Grandma Bessie

So after she passed I started to soul search and try to understand what God wanted me in Johnstown for, and after 8 weeks to the day that she passed the Landlord of the Greenhouse on C Street called and asked “So I hear you want to rent the greenhouses, I don’t want a lot for it how about $100 dollars a month.”  God is so Good all the time, His timing is never ours because just the day before I had given my last $100 dollars to my friend Gary Hale so he could go to Africa on a missions trip. How Great is our God.  I found the place like this

Front Greenhouse march 20, 2009

Sure just a couple of weeds and a large 15 yard dumpster later, I cleaned it up and turned it into this

Front Greenhouse 2011

There are so many things I have done and yet the ones that we haven’t done are the ones that affect us the most, well at least me. The tables that the plants are on are so low, no really low,  it breaks our backs.  For me being 6 feet five I hit my head so many times a day. This year I got a somewhat new door as you can tell it has it’s own charm and character, but at least I can walk through it and not have to duck!

I love telling the story about how I found this place and how I became the lucky owner of this 75 year old greenhouse that has never missed a summer of business.  Stop down and see why the west end is the best end and “Matteo’s is the Hippest Hot house in the west end.”

I could go on and on about what God has done for me in my business and would love the personal opportunity to do just that, so stop down and ask me.

Many of us have heard the saying “Knee high by the Fourth of July” and obviously they were talking about corn.  I can’t wait either.  But in this day and age we don’t have to wait for corn and many other vegetables unless we are growing them ourselves.

So many of you know or are learning that I love to cook! I know big surprise!  But do you also know that I go to Farmers Markets too?  The Farmers Markets are the best place to get the freshest veggies around. Well it’s Tomato time,

Brandy Boy Tomato

This is a Brandy Boy which is a cross between a Brandywine and Big Boy so it gets really big and splits but is very sweet and flavorful. I sliced it into chunks and placed it on a pre-made pizza crust from Conzatti’s (where I sell my basil), I also used fresh Garlic from the market with my fresh large leaf basil and EVOO.  Fresh tomato basil Cheese curds and Shiitake mushrooms I even used the Hot banana peppers off the cell packs I haven’t sold yet topped with the Muenster cheese I had sliced from Giant Eagle.  I baked the pizza on a pizza stone on the grill for about 20-25 minutes at 500 degrees.  Get ready to make your mouth water…..

Fresh produce from the Farmers Market in Somerset

So whether your growing corn or tomatoes or maybe you can’t grow anything,  NOW’s the time to shop fresh and buy local so support your local Farmers Market and buy your basil here, there, or at these convenient locations Fritz’s Farmers Market and Conzatti’s Italian Market.

Anyone can do this, I like simple recipes and beautiful food. The fresher the better. So it’s not about corn but soon we will be knee high of vegetables and we won’t know what to do with all of them.

Pizza Recipe

Pre-made pre-baked pizza crust of your choice

EVOO about 1/4 cup for basil and garlic mixture

2 cloves of garlic

Two large plants of Basil stripped of leaves and chopped

mix basil with garlic and oil and place on pizza crust

top with 1 Tomato sliced or cubed

8 Sliced Shiitake mushrooms or other variety

2 sliced hot banana peppers

3 tablespoons of Cheese curds or fresh Mozzarella

5 slices of Muenster cheese or shredded Mozzarella

place on pizza peel and place on preheated pizza stone for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool and slice and then last and most important step, Bring over to Matteo’s and share your creation with me, I gave you my recipe it’s the least you can do.

Thanks again.

When someone ask do you sell dirt I answer why of course! I use dirt aka soil to plant all of my plants whether I start with seedlings, plugs, starters, or even larger plants I use Fafard C-1P mix I have used it since the greenhouse started in 2008 and continue to recommend it to everyone.  Trust me and every other greenhouse owner, we the owners are married to our dirt.  I have tried and tried others but if you touch this and plant with it you won’t switch either.

So today in the “Life of Matteo” was a exciting but nervous day, I recently had to make a very large and costly decision for the greenhouse.  With the rising cost of everything and the fact that shipping is never going to go down in price I had to purchase soil for the greenhouse.  Unfortunately and yet good that it worked out I made the decision to purchase enough soil to last 2-3 years for us. Which will keep some of the rising cost down in the long run.

22 Pallets of Soil

51 Bags on a pallet

Stacked

My Step-Father John to the right

From One truck to another, I bring what I need as I need it. Thank you John,  my family helps in so many ways.  Buying it is hard on the checkbook, but finding a place to put it all would be another headache without the help of my Step-Father and all of his resources.

Crimson cruiser carrying my soil

Parked in? it could push it if it had too!