Basil Equals Flavor!!!

Oh..and love too. Especially in my book. It is one of my most loved herbs there is. It's just so...so...good.

Basil \ˈba-zəl, ˈbā-, -səl\:  any of several aromatic herbs (genus Ocimum) of the mint family; especially

 (Ha! When I was looking up this definition, I found that Basil was actually a Greek Christian leader. Cool, huh?)

This summer our basil plant blossomed beautifully. It grew and grew and grew. I think it's still growing; that's if the cold hasn't killed it this week.

I love basil in pasta sauces, bruschetta, infused in oils, as an aroma, in facial cleansers. It's an all around great herb.

This week, I thought I'd share the tomato and basil sauce that I cooked up a while back. Thanks to my huge box of farmers market fresh tomatoes, I had plenty of sauce.

When it comes to cooking a good sauce, I've found that roasting your garlic is the best way to get the maximum flavor out of it. Plus, it doesn't leave you with those little chunks of garlic pieces floating it your sauce for you to chomp down on while eating. You know that you can't stand that as much I me.

So this is my garlic sitting in my oven, slowly roasting away.

 (Don't mind the pizza stone. It is clean...I promise. It's just seasoned *smirk*)

Anyhoo..back to my sauce.

I took about 20 tomatoes and placed them in some boiling water for a bit. Just to make the skins wrinkly...makes for easy removal if you weren't aware. After taking the skins off, I cut the tomatoes into quarters and placed them in my sauce pan. I add a heaping pile of chopped basil, salt and pepper, one head of roasted garlic, about a half cup of finely chopped onion and turned the burner to a medium heat to bring it to a boil and then turned it to a simmer.

 Then....I let it cook......All. Day.

When it was about 5, I turned it off and spooned some of it over some homemade meatballs and spaghetti. Talk about yummy!!!!

The 20 tomatoes yielded about 3-4 jars of sauce...I probably would have had 5-6 if we wouldn't have had it for supper. But this gal couldn't wait.

I {heart} spaghetti...especially with homemade sauce.

My basil plant is still bringing home the bacon, so to keep from wasting it's yummy goodness, I'm going to stock up on it. The freezer will be the perfect spot for storing it too. I'll coarsely chop the basil and place it into the ice cube trays that I have. Then I'll pour water over it and freeze it. That will keep the basil fresh and on hand for when ever I need it.

Do you love basil as much as I do? Do you have some recipes that you would like to share that use basil? If so, I would love to know. I'm always looking for new recipes.

Have a blessed Tuesday!!!

This is linked to Tasty Tuesday, Tempt my Tummy Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table.