Herbs, making pesto

You might be curious as to why I devote so much space in my small garden to growing basil. Well, the fact is that every member of my family loves the flavor of fresh basil.  There is truly no comparison to the flavor of fresh basil over dried. So we enjoy fresh basil all summer long and well into the winter months with a very easy preservation method.

One of the best characteristics of the basil plant is that is a great cut and come again type plant. The more you harvest, the more it will grow. Basil is a plant that is very frost sensitive, so it’s important to get as many fresh leaves as you can during the summer growing season.

To harvest basil, take a pair of sharp shears to the garden. Trim the plant tops just above a node. This encourages new lateral growth and more leaves. As the growing season continues, you will get more leaves although the individual leaf size may be smaller.

To preserve basil that tastes almost as good as the fresh leaves, I blend up batches of leaves in my food processor. There is a lot of room for experimentation in the kitchen, but a general rule of thumb to start with is to use a ratio of about three cups of packed fresh leaves one half cup of oil. I use olive oil with basil, but just about any oil will work. You can also add fresh garlic cloves, nuts and Parmesan cheese for more flavor, and to make a traditional pesto.

3 cups packed fresh, clean basil leaves

1 cup parsley leaves

½ cup good olive oil

¼ cup melted butter

2-3 cloves fresh garlic

½ cup nuts (pine, walnuts, pecans or almonds)

½ cup fresh Parmesan cheese

Throw all the dry ingredients in the food processor with the chopper blade and add the liquid ingredients in a stream until thoroughly blended into a paste. Scrape down sides a couple of times. 

Once you have the leaves and olive oil thoroughly blended, you can put the mix into ice cube trays. Freeze the trays and then you can pop the frozen basil cubes (or pesto) into freezer bags for later use. Each cube holds about one tablespoon of herb paste, which is really quite a lot since it is so concentrated. You can use the cubes as is in soups and stews or melt them and toss them with pasta.

Preserving fresh basil or other herbs like this is a great way to continue to enjoy the harvest long after that frost.