An abundant harvest

As we have in years past, we planted basil this year. Our new neighbor gave us a pot of basil plants very early in the season, and that pot turned out to hold about 12 individual basil plants! With the warm weather this summer, they have been thriving. I've been making about 3 servings of pesto each week (one serving dresses one pound of pasta) - which really is so much basil. One serving takes 2 full cups of fresh basil leaves.

This week's basil harvest bordered on ridiculous - 14 cups of basil. I picked all of the big leaves yesterday and thought about what to do with it. When you freeze basil, it turns black, so that seemed kind of unappealing to me. I decided to go ahead and make the basil into pesto, and put it into the canning jars that I had left over from strawberry season. Each serving fit perfectly into a half pint jar! Seven servings just today!

We can't possibly eat this much pesto. And the crazy part is that next weekend, there will be just as much basil to do something with. The pesto will last about a week in this jar in the fridge... so if you live in the Raleigh-Durham area and want some free, homemade basil pesto, please email me at manda2mama@gmail.com! I am happy to make arrangements for delivery or pick up :)