Remember the other day when I said I had to harvest basil. I went out the next morning and clipped a large bowl of sweet basil. I knew I would make some pesto as it so easy. If you haven’t made pesto before check out my post on how to make pesto and even this one called pesto with a twist. Adding black olives to pesto gives it a completely new flavour.
What was very interesting is that when I looked at old photos I was making pesto last year in August. That’s a month away. Yes, everything is early this year and it’s all I can do to keep up with the harvesting. You can use pesto as an appetizer, spread or on pasta. I like to use a layer of pesto in my vegetarian lasagna. It gives the lasagna an unbelievable flavour with all that garlic, basil and nuttiness.
If you have too much basil, rinse it off lightly and let the basil air dry on a towel for about thirty minutes. You can pop it into freezer bags and use as needed. I will often break some frozen leaves off when making homemade pizza. It only takes a few minutes to thaw. I love adding basil to my pizzas.
Once the pesto was made I headed back outside for some cinnamon basil. I grew this basil so I could try it out as a replacement for cinnamon. We can’t grow cinnamon here so maybe this basil would do. I didn’t need much for the cookie recipe I had found online at Cooks.com called Lime-Cinnamon Basil cookies. The recipe called for 3 tablespoons of cinnamon basil and chopped lime peel. It’s a basic icebox cookie recipe and easy to whip up. I made rolls of dough and chilled them all day before baking. The cinnamon basil has pretty flowers but you don’t want it to flower as it sends a signal to the plant to make seeds. I need to pinch this basil back and remove the flowering stems.
This is how the basil cookies looked after ten minutes in the oven. I must confess, I made them yesterday and they are all gone. Luckily I have one more roll to bake. You know, everything in moderation, right. Now I am thinking that I could use the cinnamon basil to flavour my iced teas. I made a large pot of regular tea and poured it into a juice jug with sprigs of cinnamon basil and slices of orange. It was great. I like to combine the cinnamon basil with citrus flavours.
The only basil I haven’t tried from the garden is Red Rubin. Its dark purple leaves look stunning next to the green leaves of sweet basil. I am going to use it to make some pesto today. Yes, it won’t be green but that’s okay. Sometimes its fun to break the rules.
