Basil: A Tip

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

Yeah, it's not a glorious picture. The good news is that it's not supposed to be.

See that whacked off basil plant there in the middle; that's what we're going to talk about today.

Yesterday I made a booty load of pesto. I cut off all my basil plants to the tune of 12 C of basil leaves for my pesto. However, when I cut them off--and here's the tip part--I leave a few leaves at the bottom--sometimes even some teeny weeny ones will do. These will grow into another branch. Depending on how much summer/mild fall you've got left, they'll grow back a lot or a little. But the point is that you can have your pesto and eat your basil too. I made a LOT of pesto. And I'll still have enough basil leaves to meet my current basil needs until a frost hits and does the little guys in. On a very good year (i.e. and Indian summer kind of a year, or a year when your basil is ready early), you might even get the little guys to grow up enough to get another batch or few of pesto out of them.

Oh--and if you haven't made pesto before, and if you have a source of cheap basil, you really really should make pesto. It's good; it's easy; it makes you feel special.