Oh, what a beautiful herb!

I have had basil in my city garden now for over thirty years.  It seems with age comes a better appreciation for its versatility in my cooking.  In the beginning it was added to store-bought tomato sauce and perhaps a pasta salad.  It was always my best growing herb and after a while I thought of it as a pretty plant in my summer garden.

However, this year has been an awakening to more possibilities.  For example, don’t laugh, but I never thought to make and freeze pesto at the peak of the growing season when its flavor is at its very best.  A recently discovered hack is to add basil to my mayo for BLT sandwiches.  Wow!  And, despite my taking more and more basil leaves it seems my plants are very happy to grow more for my next meal.

Here’s to a great herb growing in my garden.  I can’t wait to try growing it in my kitchen over the winter and to continue discovering more uses to kick up my cooking!