Basil & Italian Parsley

[Barbara]

I have an abundance of basil and parsley in my garden. Outside of pesto any ideas of what to do with it??

 

[bowlingshirt]

That will work great in pretty much any Italian dish.

 

[Loprraine]

Barb, mine's doing very well also. I rough chop about a cup of each,place in serving bowl, add about 1 to 1 1/2 cups olive oil. Cube some fiore di latte or plain mozz, and add to bowl. Cook pasta, drain, add to bowl and toss. S&P to taste. It cools to room temp, and the cheeze melts, and it tastes great!!!!

 

[BreezyCooking]

Pesto, pesto, pesto - lol!!! Also toss both into green salads, tuck them into grilled chicken & fish, top burgers with them, toss them in with fresh tomato pasta sauces. . . . Lord, I do love my summer's bounty of Italian flat-leaf parsley & my basils!!

 

[CharlieD]

Pizza, flat bread. Bobby Flay made this flat bread with bean spread and basil. looked very yummy.

 

[GB]

Chimichurri is my favorite thing to make with parsley.

 

[KitchenSally]

I seem to be tossing in flat leaf parsley into everything these days.

My all time fave for basil is to make boccochini salads. Fresh mozzarella, (size of tennis balls then sliced into rounds or mini ones that are in brine), best tomatoes I can find and lots of fresh basil. Drizzle with some good olive oil, a couple of drops of balsamic and some kosher or sea salt. Mmmmm!

 

[auntdot]

Make a bolognese sauce. Basil and flat leaf parsley go great in it.

 

[DramaQueen]

I too am growing basil this summer. It doesn't do well in Las Vegas at all but here in the Michigan climate, with plenty of rain, it flourishes. I have tons of thick, bushy stalks and it's beauuuuutiful! I discovered that you can successfully freeze pesto, so that's what I do. I fill several half-cup zip loc containers, perfect for one or two meals for me and I can have pesto for months. You can use pesto by itself with pasta, or in spaghetti sauce, soups, and as a topping for baked potatoes, mixed into rice for a great taste or mix it with soft butter, roll into balls and freeze for any use. Pesto does wonders for tomato, vegetable or any Italian soup. BTW, I always add fresh Italian parsley to basil when making pesto and I discovered that walnuts make better pesto than pine nuts.

 

[bethzaring]

I too am growing basil this summer. It doesn't do well in Las Vegas at all but here in the Michigan climate, with plenty of rain, it flourishes. I have tons of thick, bushy stalks and it's beauuuuutiful! I discovered that you can successfully freeze pesto, so that's what I do. I fill several half-cup zip loc containers, perfect for one or two meals for me and I can have pesto for months. You can use pesto by itself with pasta, or in spaghetti sauce, soups, and as a topping for baked potatoes, mixed into rice for a great taste or mix it with soft butter, roll into balls and freeze for any use. Pesto does wonders for tomato, vegetable or any Italian soup. BTW, I always add fresh Italian parsley to basil when making pesto and I discovered that walnuts make better pesto than pine nuts.

I agree 100% on everything!

 

[justplainbill]

Anyone tasted the basil from Finale Ligure? If so, how does it compare to the stuff available here in the states?

 

[SizzlininIN]

Thanks for the tip on freezing the pesto...I too have tons of the stuff.

 

[*amy*]

I have an abundance of basil and parsley in my garden. Outside of pesto any ideas of what to do with it??

Hi Barbara. Outside of pesto, I use herbs to enhance almost any dish - pasta, salad, soup, stew, roasting a chicken, beef, sprinkle your herbs on tomatoes or any veggie, drizzle with evoo, s&p and roast your veggies. You can add your herbs to a multitude of sauces - homemade tomato sauce is just one idea. Seafood - shrimp scampi or any fish dish. Potato dishes - mashed, baked or fried. Homemade bread/pizza crusts/buns/foccacia --the possibilities are endless. In some recipes I prefer the sweet taste of basil, in some recipes I use italian flat leaf parsley. The latter can sometimes be a little strong/bitter. Experiment, and use your herbs sparingly, as not to overpower your dish - taste as you go.

Herbs added to fruit, i.e watermelon feta salad or strawberry spinach salad, enhance the flavorsof thr fruit. Another suggestion - compound butter.

 

[Claire]

This year my basil popped up and died. I have no idea what killed it, but I bought some seeds and platned them in a pot. They are coming up like crazy, so who knows what will come of it. Since I moved to IL, I wind up with more herbs than I can use, so we will see what happens (one year we got desperate and I called local restaurants and gave them herbs, mostly basil). Right now I have cut tarragon and cilantro down the the ground, and would have cut the mint to the ground if it wasn't for the fact that I have a guest visiting in a few days who loves mint juleps (I already tore out the peppermint, and am saving the spearment for the julepss and southeast asian foods).

 

[BreezyCooking]

Be careful with your tarragon Claire - it can be a lot less forgiving of being sheared to the ground than most other herbs.

 

[DramaQueen]

claire: You're about to find out that you should NEVER plant mint in the ground. It is a spreader and you'll be picking mint in your neighbors' yard before long. This stuff is very invasive and cutting it to the ground will only make it grow more. Tearing out the peppermint won't help. It will pop up in another location as well as the original location. Too bad your basil isn't that invasive. If you have to plant mint, plant it in a pot so it stays contained. I grew chocolate, pineapple, spearmint and orange mint. I loved it in teas.

 

[Claire]

Believe me, I know about mint. It is in its own separate garden, and I still tear tons of it out several times per summer. It has to jump 4 feet to get into my herb garden on one side, or my vegetable garden on the other, but it can and will if I allow it. Next summer I may spray it to kill it and then container it. My big mistake was to plant the peppermint.

We live in cheese land, and one fun thing to do is make a salad of cheese curds, cherry or grape tomatoes (it will be another few weeks before we have good tomatoes), olive oil, and lots of basil. This was my sister's idea and it is a great take on the old Italian favorite.

 

[weloveseafood]

Try sliced tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil - it is delicious.

 

[BreezyCooking]

Claire - I apologize for taking this off-topic here, but I've seen "cheese curds" for sale in some cheese catalogs & thought they sounded intriguing.

How would you describe them?

 

[Barbara]

thanks everybody for your great ideas. I have frozen some basil - washed, blanched and put in a food processor with a little olive oil. Put in ice cube trays then popped them out after they were frozen into a plastic bag.

Otherwise, I'm putting parsley and basil in everything! The tomtoes are just coming in, some are better than others. This is fun for sure!! Oh and the lizards are busy in my garden too.

btw, I learned about mint the hard way a few years ago.