Questions for Cooks

[Gravekeeper]

barely have time to eat, let alone cook these days, and it blows. That's how I ended up leaving the peppers in the oven for a week in the first place.

If time is a factor you should try heat infusing oil then. Its the fastest method plus it sterilizes the ingredients if you bring it up hot enough for a sufficient period of time. Its basically just stewing your oil and ingredients together in a sauce pan for a while. You can even strain the oil out afterwards if you like.

Long as you do that then store it in a sterile container ( clean and DRY. Moisture bad. ) it should be fine.

[wolfie]

No, putting it in the fridge is probably the worst thing to do. Not only will the oil congeal (as you have already discovered) fresh basil does NOT like the cold. Basil will go into a very ugly black colour in a short period of time almost like a banana that has spoiled. At that point the basil is beyond all hope as the volatile oils will have degraded almost completely.

So you either need to be using dried ingredients for infusing or you need to refrigerate or you need to be heat infusing to kill the nasties. Otherwise you risk bacteria and/or shitty taste results.

Hmmm, looks like you've got a no-win situation. Drying the basil, refrigerating the basil-in-oil, or heating the basil result in sub-optimum taste. Leaving the basil-in-oil unrefrigerated risks food poisoning. In this situation, I'd probably take option #5: keep an indoor herb garden, and harvest the basil (leaf/stem crop, so doesn't need to be harvested at a particular point in the plant's life cycle) on an as-needed basis.

As for preservation of other foods, I've heard that eggs stay fresh longest when kept in the chicken.

[dalesys]

... heard that eggs stay fresh longest when kept in the chicken.

Cute theory, but impractical. Have any of the proponents *tried* stuffing them back in?

[Barracuda]

In the future, there is unfortunately only one sure fire way to keep herbs fresh and unspoiled, and that is to grow some indoors and only pick them as needed.

[Kittish]

I have a pot of oregano, a pot of thyme and thinking about adding a windowbox of assorted hopefully self-seeding basil. The oregano is trying hard to climb right out of its pot and go wandering about.

[lordlundar]

Yeah, the ideal method is to have an indoor herb garden for stuff you use. Just make sure you keep tabs on pruning it properly or you'll have a vine and not much leaves. You can put clippings in a dish of water which will keep the herbs fresh for a few days, longer if you can keep the stem submerged. Then that way you can keep them until you're ready for them.

[wolfie]

In the future, there is unfortunately only one sure fire way to keep herbs fresh and unspoiled, and that is to grow some indoors and only pick them as needed.

I believe I said that a couple posts ago.

I have a pot of oregano

So long as you remember to keep track of which is the oregano and which is the pot.

[Kittish]

So long as you remember to keep track of which is the oregano and which is the pot.

Not a problem.

As far as pruning goes, I trim my plants as needed and for the herbs hang up the trimmings to dry then put them in containers for storage.

[Antisocial_Worker]

In case anyone was wondering, we tried growing herbs indoors, but our kitchen window doesn't get enough light to keep anything alive. That's why we moved the basil to a pot outside, where it thrived.

Oil is still congealed, leaves still inside, in the fridge. Peppers are still in Tupperware, with a big bowl of new ones to be dried.