Long before I became the world-famous media, marketing mogul that you see before you…I planned on being a famous musician, writer, and chef. I worked several chef and chef-type jobs in my much younger days and for awhile there I had dreams of culinary school and was even ready to put on the clogs. But I digress.
The fact is, as I got older and starting pursuing corporate and not-so corporate endeavors, I kinda stopped cooking all together and crowned myself Master Chef – Takeout Edition. (This coincidentally seems to line up with a phase in my life where I started packing on the lbs but that’s a topic for another post.) Fast forward a decade or so later, one of my goals for my new life in North Carolina was to get back to trying to learn to cook. How lucky you all are to be here to join me!
So I’m picking up a couple things at the grocery store a few weeks ago and I pass by a display of little basil plants. You know the ones, they are usually packaged as plants that have a fighting chance but in reality, most folks buy them, cut off the basil, and then au revoir little basil plant! I grabbed one.
I ended up clipping some of the leaves for a simple little tomato basil mozzarella snack but that’s not what this post is about. This post is about the fact that I was determined NOT to kill my little basil plant and I took such good care of it, I ended up having a basil supply and demand dilemma.
I took to the internet to find advice on ways to dry basil and that’s where I found the inspiration to freeze my basil instead. This “recipe” couldn’t be easier, here’s what I did.
How to Make Basil Olive Oil Ice Cubes
- Clip, clean, dry and chop up your fresh basil
- Grab and drop a few pinches of the chopped basil evenly into ice cube tray
- Pour some nice olive oil evenly into ice cube tray – I’d say about half way
- I also added a drop of balsamic vinegar into each but you could skip this
- Freeze!
Depending on how basil-y you like your recipes, the amount you add can vary but I ended up using a hefty handful of basil leaves and this is such a good idea, I plan on claiming I thought of it myself! Check back in a few weeks, I’ve already cooked up a real simple recipe using these basil ice cubes and plan to share that next!
