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Abundant Basil Leaves – Dried and Bottled

Abundant Basil Leaves – Dried and Bottled

Browsing recipes is part and parcel of #cb (call it phase 2 or whatsoever but it’s essentially cb lar. Or cb1.5 🤷🏻‍♀️). A lot of recipes use dried basil. I was going to order a bottle of basil on RedMart then it just occurred to me what a goondu I was! Lots and lots of organic basil in my yard and I was going to pay for it on RedMart?!

So I harvested the leaves and air dried them. Looks like the ones in bottles ya?? Except mine aren’t shredded yet.

Air dried basil leaves in a basket
Air dried basil leaves in a basket

Upon advice from my friend, I baked them in my oven at the lowest temperature for 30 mins to make sure there’s no more moisture trapped in the leaves to prevent mould. Baking them now!

The basil leaves shrank a lot after baking.
The basil leaves shrank a lot after baking.

They’ve shrunk a lot after baking but they smell really fragrant!!

Time to bottle them!!

Fragrant basil leaves bottled!
Fragrant basil leaves bottled!

#yardtotable #basil #herb

Fresh Basil Pesto Sauce

Fresh Basil Pesto Sauce

I have been dying to make fresh basil pesto sauce every since I got my first rooted cutting from one of the nice members on the FB Urban Farming group.

I have been trying to propagate them through cuttings ever since I received it. Right now, I have 3 little basil plants and they need a trim. Their leaves are getting messy. Snip Snip snip!

I love the rich taste of this fresh basil pesto sauce. It is especially easy to do and all you need is just throw everything into a food processor. How much more idiot proof can it get??

Fresh Basil Pesto Spaghetti

Ingredients for Fresh Basil Pesto Sauce:

  • 2 cups fresh basil leaves
  • 1/3 cup nuts (usually pine nuts or walnuts are used, I used macademia because I only have those right now and can’t go out to buy others as it’s the covid19 circuit break now)
  • 3 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1/3 cup of freshly grated Parmesean cheese (If you don’t have this at home, you can use Romano or Parmesean-Reggiano)
  • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
  • salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method:

  1. Put the basil leaves and nuts into a food processor and pulse them until they are fine.
  2. Add garlic and cheese to the mixture. Pulse.
  3. Add olive oil. Pulse until mixture becomes a paste.
  4. Stir in salt and ground black pepper to the paste. To taste.
Fresh Basil leaves
Fresh Basil Leaves from my plants in the yard. How much more organic can it get!? 🙂
Texture of pesto mixture before adding salt and black pepper
Texture of pesto mixture before adding salt and black pepper

You can add it to your pasta. Just lightly toss them on a warm pan. It also tastes very good on toasted bread and crackers. Or if you think your food is too bland and needs an extra oomph!

CB (Circuit Break) Life Woes!

CB (Circuit Break) Life Woes!

And so Singapore started the CB (Circuit Break) (What were you thinking of? Certainly not a hokkien “slang” I hope…). CB is uniquely Singaporean – made famous by our PM Lee!

#1 CB horror story…..

Opened the vegetable door of the refrigerator… “OMG! This is the only thing we have left!!!” Until our next Redmart delivery (which I spent like 2 weeks to get a slot.)

“Don’t worry! Let me see what I can harvest from my yard!”

“Waaa! I have harvested something! We can have this for dinner!”

3 eager sets of eyes…

All went 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻🤦🏻 Guess I need to step up on my farming production…. very low productivity… 😅