Friday, June 13, 2008

[Bumbling Bees - Food] Basil, many ways

Hooray, it's summer (well, almost)! That means basil. Lots and lots of basil. After being lured by its scent, I picked up a bunch at the farmer's market for one dollar. I would've liked a smaller bunch, but they only came in one size: GINORMOUS. I hard to start using this herb, and quick! What did I make?


Pesto, the old standby


Bruschetta


Pasta Primavera


Turkey Parmesan Meatballs


I made so much pesto and so many meatballs that I was able to freeze a good portion of each for later. And I froze the leaves themselves.


Basil cubes! I think I can
just toss these into a soup.


This is what's left of the basil after I used about two-thirds. Still a lot. Maybe I should just dry the rest. I also tried steeping it in hot water, and the tea turned out pretty nice! Any other ideas? The basil has been in my fridge for a week now, and it's not so fresh anymore, unfortunately. I tried to use it up as fast as I could!


Help me!!!


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Posted By greeeenwithenv to Bumbling Bees - Food at 6/13/2008 06:38:00 PM

2 comments:

Lana said...

If you have fresh bread (foccacia's a good one), cheese and tomatoes (gotta be careful of those tomatoes, though!), basil leaves instead of lettuce are a great addition.

Cooking Thai or Vietnamese food would help use up some of that basil, and a curry could be frozen for later.

I haven't tried it myself, but you can steep basil leaves to make an herbal tisane. If you do try it, take some pictures at let me know how it taste! (You may want to add other herbs, or honey, too.)

Also, I'm going to e-mail you that basil-ricotta lasagna recipe I blogged about a while ago. That uses quite a bit of basil.

MooCow said...

We made lime-basil popsicals at work once that I still dream about. I don't have the recipe, but we used stabilizers in it so the texture wouldn't be as icy, and that's not something you would use/buy at home. Still, there's no reason why you shouldn't make a granite or homemade popsicle version yourself. Make a simple syrup (1:1 sugar:water) and steep the basil leaves in it for 5 minutes. Don't steep it for too long or the basil might taste bitter. Mix in lime juice and freeze. You might want to use a regular popsical or granite recipe for proportion guidelines.