The last time I grew fresh basil the plants got eaten alive by pests and died slow deaths. Allowing my backyard to grow wild for years must have invited all sorts of aphids & slugs, but I'm slowly working to remedy that whole situation.
In the meantime I buy packaged fresh basil at the Ranch 99 down the street, but apparently I've been storing it improperly for years. I can admit that after reading this eHow article I found a few days ago.
It's really pretty simple. All you do is take them out of the package, cut the bottoms of the stems (just like flowers) and stick em in a jar of water, changing the water every day. I bought this basil about 5 days ago, and since then the sprigs have straightened out and are as rigid as if they were potted. They have that great smell, and keeping them in plain sight motivates me to cook with them. This sure beats having a ziploc bag full of sludge in my fridge.
correcto!! we have huge amounts of basil growing here and always have a small glass of it on the bench for easy use.... it even starts to shoot if its in the water for a while.
ReplyDeletenothing like it.
basil + garlic + some seeds or nuts + fair amount of oil in a mortar and pestle.... hellooooo fancy lunchtime sandwich :)
Oh, that sounds great, maybe with an unobtrusive cheese and a japanese beer!
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely going to keep some to root & plant. That would be one less thing to pick up at the market.
mmmmm cheese.
ReplyDelete