About a month or so ago I purchased a basil plant in the produce section of Walmart. I wanted to be able to have some fresh herbs available for cooking and I also wanted to learn how to dry them to have on hand in the cabinet. Leaning how to be as self sufficient as possible is very important to me, along with good storage.
Unfortunately yesterday Oreo, our cat, knocked over my basil plant and broke the pot it was in. Trying to make lemonade out of lemons, I decided to try to keep the plant alive and use up the leaves on the broken stems. I pruned the basil plant, we shall see if it survives. I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to try my hand at drying the leaves. I have been reading about the care of a basil plant on various blogs and stumbled across a blog that gave instructions for drying basil 4 different ways.
This is the blog, if you want to take a look:
I started by washing the basil leaves one at a time and drying them with a couple paper towels. Payton helped with the drying of the leaves, only because she wanted ice cream and she had to wait until I was finished, but I will take the help when I can get it.
I wanted to try the microwave method, mainly because it was already 9pm and I also don’t have a dehydrator. I simply put a paper towel down on a microwave safe plate and placed the leaves on the paper towel, making sure not to over lap the leaves. I cooked the leaves in 2 minute intervals until the leaves were crispy and easily crumbled.
It took me approximately 6 minutes in my microwave but all microwaves are different and the size of the leaves matter. You can leave the leafs whole or crumble them. I chose to crumble them because I plan to use them in a lasagna this week.
I let the crumbled leaves sit out for an hour before placing them into a small jar. This can reduce the chances of mold. Eventually I will get a small dehydrator and try that method as well. And I am hopeful my basil plant will make it.
Pink Squirrel Farmstead 