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Australia
I ran away from teaching to the country to grow veggies. There are also some chooks and a pair of troublesome goats who were so much trouble they had to go! My simple green life isn't always as simple or as green as I'd like...but I keep trying!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Basil!!

I searched high and low through the internet to find a sound bite or a video clip of Sybil from Fawlty Towers shouting, 'BASIL!'.  
I couldn't find one, so you will just have to read the title of this post in that vein.  

Sometimes life here can be a little Flowery Twats.

The Cook decided today to pick the basil and make several big batches of pesto for the freezer.

One batch was very bitter and she couldn't work out why.


That was until she pointed out the plant she had picked the leaves from.
For your information, capsicum leaves 
make a very unsatisfactory pesto.


I suppose, looking at these photos, I can see how she made the error...except there was huge green capsicum on the plant she picked from.

You may think the one on the right is not basil, but it is.  
I bought it as a seedling this season and it was labeled 'perennial basil'.
Its leaves are a little hairy and not as shiny as sweet basil so it isn't so good torn into a salad.  
But it has a good hearty basil flavour and makes great pesto.
I am wondering if it will die down in the winter.



Thank goodness, The Cook is better in the kitchen than Manuel!


11 comments:

  1. Gorgeous pics as usual, Hazel! I am toying with the idea of a basil raid in my own garden for a bout of pesto making.

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  2. LOL. We had some confusion with kailan (chinese broccoli), cauliflower and broccoli last autumn. My cousin thougt broccoli and cauliflower were kailan and harvest them. I wonder where my broccoli and cauliflower dissapeared when they were already big. They end up into the wok and taste no different than kailan. Ah you just remind me to make some ice cubes of basil.

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  3. Very clever. Sure that pesto is going TO CHOKE THE COOK

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  4. Basil can you say it any other way

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  5. Hahaha...woops LOL. That is hilarious. Capsicum bells are a bit of a give away. I have one of those basil plants with the purple terminal flower heads. It doesn't really die back over winter, it sort of gets more scraggely. I cut it back before spring and it came back but took a while. Hehehe...very funny still. I am sure that it is a common mistake though, very easily done....

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  6. Oh Hazel, that is just freaking hilarious. Lol, all that effort, and imagine have people over to dinner and serving them up your "pesto"!!! Brilliant.

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  7. Oh no, poor cook.....lucky you realised...
    Just found a recipe for pesto, going to give it a whirl with the last of the basil...

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  8. Some of my favourites - both the herb and the TV programme.
    "I know" you'll say. "I know; I know; I know... BASIL, what do you think you are doing??"

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  9. So funny Hazel... yes, can still hear the "Basil" shriek!

    Oh, the taste of the capcicum leaves must've been dreadful too - enough to make you shriek ;-)

    Love your humour :D)

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  10. Funny (love faulty towers too). I think The Cook and myself have common traits lol.

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