Saturday, September 10, 2011

Easier than Pesto

I've got two giant basil plants in the garden and winter is coming, so it's time to start harvesting them.  I used to make pesto but that was work.  Today I just brought in half of one plant, shown here,
pulled the leaves out, stuffed them into a plastic bag,
and put them in the freezer.  If it's like spinach and other greens, you can crumble them while they are frozen and it even saves time chopping.   So hopefully I'll have fresh-frozen basil throughout the winter.

4 comments:

Cindy Marsch said...

I don't know that my technique is BETTER than yours, but I whirl the basil (or cilantro) in the blender with just a bit of water and then freeze it in plastic snack-size zip bags to make a "log," which I can then shave flavor off of through the fall, winter, and early summer. But I have a large family and need to conserve space in the freezer.

kneecap said...

That's great! I can try that with my next batch. thanks!

lightweight said...

You seem to have a really thriving garden! I am excited that I am finally going to have a garden of my own (landscapers are currently working on it). Do you have an resources (books, links) that might help a beginning gardener? I would love to grow all kinds of greens.

kneecap said...

We have really good soil here so it's relatively easy and basic: Till in the spring, add a little organic peatmoss or something like that, plant, water as necessary, weed as necessary, then harvest. We get a few insects eating some of the plants but it's never enough to worry about. I can tell you greens are great because they keep growing back so produce a ton of delicious produce and save lots of money. I'm afraid I don't know any books or links.