I’m not much of a gardner but I can apparently grown quite the basil crop. I have 4 plants, all much bigger than I expected them to be. Some say basil grows like a weed but mine didn’t grow because it was weedish. Mine grew because of the loving care I provided by watering them when nearly dead. When they came under attack by my puppy I put a $10 wire fence around them. This shows I care for them and thus why they decided to flourish in my garden, not because they’re weedish.

Now that the heat seems to be on the decline I decided to reap what I sowed, pluck my plants, or do whatever the term is for tearing leaves off by the handful. If I was much of a gardner I would have done this when it was still hot so that they’d replenish again this year. They seem to flourish in the heat but I’m not much of a gardner.

You may not know this about me but I eat pesto like cereal: every damn day and drowning in milk. Just kidding there’s no milk and I don’t eat it every day either. But when I’m not baking a pizza I have carrots with hummus and pita bread with pesto. That’s dinner. Simple. It doesn’t fill me up too much, it’s cheap, and it’s delicious.

In the past I’ve made pesto from the usual suspects: basil, parmesan, pine nuts (sometimes without, quite expensive), garlic, and olive oil. Grind it. Enjoy it. This time around I decided to get a little more snooty and fancy it up. The recipe I used is from The Pizza Bible (it’s where all my recipes are coming from these days). There’s nothing snooty about The Pizza Bible, it’s legit. It’s just you could make pesto with less investment but I doubt it will taste this good. I won’t post the recipe but it includes the usual suspects and adds agave syrup, lemon juice, and pepper. It’s really good. It is take a spoon to the bottle and get sick by downing olive oil good. On the front you taste the sweetness of the agave nectar which quickly changes to something more spicey from the basil, lemon juice, and pepper.

I managed to fill 9 4 ounce jars from 3 plants. I plan on plucking, reaping, nakeding the last plant some night this week to see if I can fill all 12 jars. I’m not sure how long they’ll last in the freezer but I should have an answer for that this winter. If you’d like a jar and are in the neighborhood let me know. No promises on if I’ll give you one though. Hint: I like it when people beg.