The Last of the Basil

We’ve been busy these last few weeks finishing up the garden and putting it to bed.  I’ll post later about how our garden fared this year but today I wanted to talk about basil.  We use a lot of basil.  I put it in the spaghetti sauce that I make, use it to make basil oil, tincture it and I also add it to many of the salad dressings that I make.  The most popular one is a creamy Basil Dressing.  It is wonderful!  I got the idea from a recipe given to me by a good friend.  Of course, I had to tweak it a bit.  If you’ve read here long you know I love to tweak recipes!  Basil oil is a wonderful base for salad dressing and is easy to make….and of course there is always pesto!

My goal was to gather the last of the basil and save it for winter use while at the same time saving seeds to use next year.  I thought I’d share with you how to do that.  Today I will teach you how to freeze it for use over the winter and tomorrow I will talk about saving seeds. You should never need to buy basil seed again!

I started by cutting all the basil that remained in the garden.  I sat outside under a tree and cut the seed pods from the plants.

As we gathered the plants we laid them across our hammock for air circulation.  This was because we had so many and I didn’t want to stack them and end up with a wilted mess and bruised leaves by the time I got to the bottom of the pile.  The hammock provides a nice outside “table” with great air circulation. This picture is the top of a basil plant.  You can see the brown seed pods.

I separated the seed pods from the plants and set them aside. Then I began stripping basil leaves into bowls.  I pull at the stem so I don’t bruise the leaves.  You want to handle the leaves as little as possible.  The more they bruise the more essential oil you loose from the leaf and then you also loose flavor and medicinal value (yes! basil has medicinal value!).

I ended up with a lot of basil.  I filled these bowls several times.

Then I very gently washed them in a sink of cool water and laid them on towels to drip dry.  I wash mainly to get rid of the spittle bugs. They dry very quickly.  Again…handle very gently!  I was pleased with the amount we got from the last harvest of the season!

I take the basil and gently pack two cups into freezer bags.  I hate to use plastic (and avoid it most of the time) but I haven’t found a work around for this….yet!  I need two cups for each batch of dressing so this makes it easy throughout the winter!  I need enough to get through till April when I will once again have a lot of basil in my greenhouse.  These bags will join the others I have harvested throughout the summer in the “herb” basket of our freezer.

I then take some of the basil and tincture it for medicinal purposes.  Did you know that basil is listed as being beneficial for fevers, colds, flu’s, tummy cramps, vomiting, indigestion, and for increasing the milk of nursing mothers?  I keep a tincture on hand at all times.

Basil oil is a wonderful base for salad dressing (as is basil vinegar!) and is easy to make….and of course there is always pesto!  You can also dry basil for culinary purposes.

I encourage you, if you haven’t already, to gather the last of your basil and save it for winter use before the first frost.

Join me for my next post on saving basil seeds!