Raeanne’s informative post on basil and those pics of the lovely purple foliage she’s getting with one of her plants got my mouth watering, and it made me realize that I had been neglecting the basil plants I have in my indoor herb garden.

My basil was starting to get pretty out of control given the relatively small container it has to grow in, and crowding the window like this can end up scorching the leaves, so I took an afternoon to prune the plant and use the leaves.

One major problem with out of control basil like this is that some of the plants were beginning to flower, probably because they needed to be watered and pruned.

The buds are gorgeous and aromatic, but they can change the taste of the leaves, and more importantly, a well-pruned basil plant gets bushy and leafy.

So I did a major prune job on my basil and did some major cooking with it too: bread, basil water, and pesto.

I started out my basil cooking day with Basil Cheddar Bread, a recipe I found on About.com by Elizabeth Yetter.

This soft, savory bread takes two rises, so you need to plan for between 2 and 3 hours to make it. The official recipe calls for 2 tbsp chopped basil, but I probably put in 1/2 a cup. I had a lot of basil to get through!

Recipe

Yield: 2 round loaves

Prep Time: 2 hours

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes

Ingredients:

2-1/4 cups warm water, 95 to 110 degrees F

2-1/4 tsp or 1 pkg. (1/4 oz.) active dry yeast

1/2 Tbsp sugar

1-1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp soft butter

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

2 Tbsp chopped fresh basil

6 cups bread flour, about

Preparation:

In large bowl, mix warm water and yeast. Add sugar, salt, butter, cheese, and basil. Stir. Add in enough bread flour to make a dough that follows the spoon around the bowl. Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface and knead for 10 minutes, adding more bread flour as needed until the dough is firm and smooth to the touch. Place dough in medium greased bowl. Turn dough over in bowl so that the top is also lightly greased. Cover with clean cloth and let rise in warm, draft-free place for 1 hour. Punch down dough. Turn dough out onto lightly floured board and knead for 5 minutes or until the bubbles are out of the bread. Cut dough in half. Shape each half into a round loaf and place on greased baking or cookie sheet. Cover and let rise in warm, draft-free place for 45 minutes or until doubled in size. Bake bread at 375 degrees F for 40 minutes or until the breads sound hollow when tops are tapped. Remove breads from pans and let cool on rack.

Other changes I made is that I used 1 cup less flour, and only 3/4 cup of cheddar cheese, because I ran out. These changes did not affect the flavor.

Sam helped me assemble and knead the bread. The recipe calls for a 10 minute knead, and it was fun taking turns and getting messy. This sort of play is so good for his development, and he never refuses to try something that he has helped to prepare. We had to take a bath after we were done!

Here is the tempting finished product. I always like to make sure the bread looks a little lumpy (in an attractive way of course) when I put it in the bake pan, just so everyone knows I made it from scratch.

I entered the recipe into MyPlate Recipes on the Livestrong calorie counting website, and if you divide the recipe into two loaves, and cut ten slices out of each loaf (total of 20), a nice thick slice is 243 calories.

Another thing I made was basil water, which makes a nice treat to cool off and hydrate on a hot afternoon, especially when served with a slice of well-buttered basil cheddar bread. Fresh basil also makes a lovely herbal tea in the winter. When I was sick and housebound in the dreary dead of February this year, the entire experience of using fresh basil for tea — from harvesting it to drinking it — helped me to feel as though I was injesting a lovely dose of sunshine.

You see mint used as a flavor for water all the time, and after learning that they are actually in the same family, I started using basil almost as much as mint for my flavored waters. I have added honey, apples, lemons, and ginger to my basil water in the past, but my favorite is just pure and simple basil water. Sam is more likely to drink it if I add something sweet, which I will readily do if I think it will keep him off the mango juice that he’s been craving like an addict lately.

The basil flavor can get a little overpowering if you leave it in there too long. That is something you’ll have to experiment with depending on your personal preferences.

We ended our big basil day with my simple pesto recipe:

Fill the blender with basil

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup parmesean or asiago

1 tblsp garlic

salt and pepper to taste

Mr. Picky-eater never turns down something that:

he has seen me pull from the garden, he has seen go through the blender, or includes cheese.

Pesto-pasta, my friends, is a triple threat for picky two-year olds!

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