Cooking With Basil

Earlier this week we stopped in to a farm market, since my vegetables are running late, and I wanted something homegrown, even if it wasn't my own. I picked up some yellow summer squash, red potatoes, green beans, and tomatoes. My globe basil is doing very well so I decided to make a pan of potatoes, squash, sweet onion and basil. My husband helped with the cutting: we cut the potatoes into fairly thin strips and sliced the yellow squash. We sliced up a quarter of an onion, and started off by throwing that in the pan first with a small amount of oil. This is the squash and potatoes after cutting:



We added the squash and potatoes after the onion had softened. I seasoned with salt and pepper, then put a lid on for a little bit (ten minutes or so). This recipe is hard to give measurements on but it's very easy to make variations. Sometimes I include the potatoes, other times just the squash, but I always use less potatoes than squash. The basil is the first picture, that I chopped and added at the last minute of cooking. The squash adds moisture so you only need a tiny bit of oil at the beginning. Cooking time depends on if you like your vegetables a little firm, or cooking til soft. It easy to test it now and then.



Above is the finished dish. A note on the basil; I used about 2 tablespoons in this recipe. You don't want to overdo it because it will overwhelm the other flavors. It was very good, and I could have made twice as much. We served it with grilled steak, and garlic bread for dinner.

~Brenda