Basil Cubes

Basil is one of my very favorite herbs. Besides being tasty and versatile, my favorite thing is how when I'm desperately tired of winter, a little basil brings the scent of summer back to me. I've been feeling that way lately. Not that we really had much of a winter here, but still. I'm itching to start planting things. Last summer I had these huge basil plants in my front yard; almost every other day I could go out in the evening and harvest bowls full of the leaves. It was amazing how huge the plants were. And then I could smell it on my hands all night long.

However, I was really at a loss as to what to do with all that basil. I gave a lot of it away, along with some tomatoes, but people started to get tired of it. So I made basil cubes.

In a food processor, mix up your clean basil with a little bit of olive oil, then scrape it out into an ice cube tray. Freeze for a couple of hours, then seal them in an airtight container. The cubes are the perfect size to pull out for a quick pesto or to drop in some soup.

I also tried drying some, but in my opinion the flavor holds up much better when frozen. You could use this method to save the excess basil when you buy it fresh at the store.

Easy Pesto Recipe
2 Cups Basil Leaves, or 4 or so cubes, thawed
3 good-size garlic cloves, peeled
1 Cup shelled walnuts or pine nuts
1/2 Cup olive oil
1 heaping Cup grated Parmesan Cheese
Salt and Pepper

Combine the basil, garlic and walnuts in the bowl of a food processor. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Turn the motor off, add the cheese, a big pinch of salt and a bunch of pepper. Process briefly to combine, then scrape out into a bowl and cover until ready to use.

This makes enough pesto for two meals for us, so I freeze half of it. The other half I usually just toss with some hot pasta and top with grilled chicken. Sometimes I add a little ricotta cheese, too. It's also great on bruschetta, or on some hot steamed veggies. Enjoy!

More Bread

I love making bread. So far, though, I have encountered two problems.

One, it makes me eat a lot more bread. There is just no comparing store bread to homemade. It's better for you, it makes your house smell wonderful, and it just takes so incredibly good. But I'm going to have to start running or something.

Two, it's very unpredictable. So far I have successfully made potato bread, wheat bread, and pita. I have failed at sourdough and wheat bread. The same wheat recipe came out wonderful the first time and refused to rise the second time. I could understand failing the first try and then fixing it, but no, I had to do it backwards. I think the difference is where I chose to rise the dough. In my successful breads I put the dough to rise on the dryer. Our house stays cool all the time, so putting it in the kitchen just isn't warm enough for the little yeasties. But the dryer works perfectly. The problem is that I don't always have enough laundry to keep up with my bread demands.

Bread

I went to a bread making class on Saturday. I really didn't learn very much about making bread, since the teacher was very scattered and kept walking off into the kitchen while he was talking. But I was still super inspired to make bread. It takes time, sure, but it's so worth it. Homemade bread, even when it's not great, is so much better than what you can buy. So I bought a big fatty bread book, The Bread Bible. It's a little intimidating, but I've made it to the third page. So far, so good.