My sister made spaghetti for her granddaughters recently and realized she had no dried basil.  She called me since I normally have two of everything.   I was mortified.  Me..the prepper!   I had no dried basil.   I did have fresh and sent her away with that and, later, I found one old bottle of basil.  Probably too old to use.

I made a mental note to pick up some dried basil at the grocery store, and then I thought…what not dry my own?     I have  growing out my rear…more than anyone could ever want…a ton of basil.. basil is a weed….it’s flowering too fast…plenty of basil so it made sense to preserve what I had.

In addition to growing it in the raised beds and in the flower beds, I have a little kitchen pot that’s really convenient.   My basil is all grown from seed.

I grabbed a few bunches of basil and pulled the leaves off.   I’ve read that it is best to do this with basil that has not yet flowered as the leaves have more oil in them before flowering.

I placed the basil in my dehydrator on three shelves.  You don’t have to have a dehydrator to dry basil, but it makes things much faster.  It was so convenient that I did this when I did it.  Mike had put an egg sandwich in the microwave which needed to be heated for 30 seconds.  He pressed 30 minutes and went away…only to return when he smelled a horrible stench and the papertowel in the microwave was charred.    And my cousins were on their way and would surely die from the smell.   The drying basil smell was much better than the crispy egg sandwich he made.

I’m feeling so domestic right now when I look at the picture above.  What is it about preserving food that gives me such a good feeling?   It has to be something built inside of me.       Here’s my dehydrator.  They are not expensive and super easy to use.  I put the basil in for 24 hours at about 125 degrees.

Here’s how the basil looked after it dried and I’d rubbed it a bit to break it into smaller particles.   It had a nice smell.

I made a lid for one of my small quilted jelly jars.  Feeling like a genius.

Look how sweet it is!   At this time, I started to sing.   I’m just so happy this turned out!!

Feeling glorious as I slip this jar of basil in with its peers.     Yes, I could have alphabetized them but that would make things too easy.

It’s not too late to plant basil.   It doesn’t take long for it to grow, but it does not like the cold so it needs to go in the ground soon.   I’m going to try to capture some seeds from the flowering basil and see if I can get it to grow without buying seeds.  I’ve never done that.

Thank you for reading RiverCliff Cottage.   Hope you have a wonderful day!