And More Basil--Tomato Soup, too

By Kathryn Washburn Breighner

Perry is right that for those of us in northern climates, finding basil in the winter is a task. Perry's find of inexpensive fresh basil at the Asian grocery store spurred Nathaniel to visit his nearby Asian grocery in Tampa and he came home with the same large bag of basil for only a few dollars.

There are no Asian groceries near us so sadly, that option is not available. I have an indoor AeroGarden which I use in the winter months to grow herbs. I love it! I currently have an abundant crop of purple basil, sweet basil, dill, mint, thyme, chives, and parsley. I don't know how I made it through the winter without the AeroGarden. There is a separate post on the blog about the AeroGarden.

In the summer, I usually have 3 different kinds of basil in the garden and as the season ends, I 'put up' the basil in a variety of ways. We can marinara sauce, lots of it using my tomatoes (70 tomato plants last summer!) We dried baskets full of basil using the dehydrator--wow, does each tiny jar of basil require a large quantity of fresh basil.

And I freeze basil in cubes as I described to Perry in my comments to his posting. Easy to do with any herb that you have extra of: rinse and chop, pack into ice cube trays (I had to buy some to use for the herbs since we no longer use ice cube trays to make ice!), top with water to cover, freeze, and then pop out of the trays and put in a freezer bag. I typically freeze 8-10 trays of basil to use in the winter.

One of our favorite quick winter soups is a Tomato Basil

2 32-oz. jars of tomatoes, I only used the ones I've canned, so if you have to buy canned tomatoes (AAGGHH!), use 2 28-oz cans
2 T olive oil
1 minced onion
4 garlic cloves minced
2 c vegetable stock
8 cubes of frozen basil (or 1 1/2 t dried or 1/4 c fresh basil, minced)
salt and pepper

Saute the onion and garlic in the oil. Add the tomatoes, vegetable stock, basil cubes, salt and pepper (I use Penzey's black and red pepper).

Simmer for 15-20 minutes breaking up the tomatoes while they cook.

Serve with fresh croutons. I make mine with cubed leftover bread tossed with a little olive oil and Penzey's Sandwich Sprinkle and baked at 350 degrees for 15 minutes, tossing occasionally.