Take a look at this luscious, green basil. It is SO appealing, bursting with vibrant colour, fragrance and flavour. I couldn’t resist picking up a couple of big bunches was I walked through the Norton Street Grocer in Leichhardt earlier today. 

After stripping the leaves off the stalks and washing in cold water, I dried them using the salad spinner. This is an excellent and useful kitchen gadget as it manages to take all the excess water off fresh herbs and salad vegetables. This enables the preferred salad dressing to cling adequately to each bite sized ingredient. It also means that when added to a cooked dish, the flavour will not be diluted with unwanted, extra water. 

I’m planning on using a quarter of this basil in a fresh tomato, mushroom and basil pasta sauce for lunch tomorrow. The remainder will be blitzed into pesto with Australian garlic, olive oil and Italian Parmesan. Peek into my Cabinet of Cookery tomorrow night to see the final delicious results. 

This evening we ate Veal with Verjuice, Fennel and Bay Leaves (recipe posted on the 27th October). I also added three pink skinned Desiree potatoes to the pot because they were left in the hessian potato sack and needed to be used before the next grocery shop. 

I had made this dish yesterday afternoon because I was expecting today to be particularity busy, with very little time actually spent at home. With the rice cooker turned on 15 minutes before we were due to eat, this was a very easy, stress-free way to kick off dinner dish number one, at the beginning of the working and school week.