I know someone asked about basil the other day but,

[lucysmam]

I just want to clarify something for myself. If I strip the leaves off it (not very green fingered & some of them are starting to look a bit wilted) do I chop them up to freeze in ice cubes?

Thanks xx

I think so - then you can put the ice cubes straight into what you're cooking.

I remember the basil thread too! My plant isn't looking as green but other than that it seems ok.

yy

you can chop it up and freeze it in ice cubes

I found freezing too faffy. Now I cut it all off, stalks and all, leave it to dry on the kitchen windowsill and then holding onto the stalks, crumble the dried leaves into a ziplock bag. Keeps its flavour pretty well, just found a bag I must have done in the spring and it was OK.
Think the trick is not to leave it drying too long.

really fink? I didn't think about doing that with it! Not that I have any space on my windowsill for anything atm

Will it grow back if I chop all the leaves off? Just so I don't go and throw it away will it grow back if I strip it all? Or will it die? Cos I'd feel awful killing it by hacking it up even though I'm not doing a great job of looking after it

In my experience it will die, but I am rubbish at keeping little basil plants alive.

Oh

Now I feel like a basil plant murderer But I have a feeling it won't live much longer anyways the way I get on with plants, so maybe am doing it a favour

Cheers OMDB

Another thing you could do is put the leaves (chopped or unchopped) in a little glass jar covered with oil. The oil will preserve the leaves and you can just take them out when rewuired and all to your cooking. I do ths sometimes to use in tomato sauces.

And you get nice flavoured oil too!

Oil is yum, must do that again.

Usually they die, but they're annuals anyway so have a short life and are hothoused so not v resilient, no great Tragedy imo, and I hate wasting anything.
This summer before the children & I went to visit my parents, I cut down 2 plants as I knew my plant-neglecting h would forget to water them. They grew back, maybe better variety as I grew them from organic seed? Nice surprise anyway.

Think I'll try the glass jar covered with oil thing. Will look pretty too!

After reading that fink, I will leave it a while after I cut it down to see if the leaves grow back. But I won't keep my fingers crossed.

Cheers for the info

If you're keeping the basil in oil for a long time you need to make sure you don't give yourself botulism!

www.foodscience.csiro.au/oilvine.htm

hmmmmmm, maybe freeze it then after all. Just in case

Althought it would be used quite quickly