Storing Herbs

End of the gardening season is here.  I had quite a bit of mint and a little bit of basil left.  Here are two ways to keep these herbs.

Take your cuttings and give them a cool bath in the sink to rinse off any dirt. Lay them on a clean dishtowel and gently pat to dry.  Take a couple at a time and tie together with kitchen string.
Suspend them away from direct sunlight for a few weeks to dry.  My kitchen is kind of dark (the reason for some not-so-bright food photos) so I ran a string under my shelf and hung my herb bundles up to dry there. Hanging them upside-down helps the oils flow into the leaves giving you more flavour. 

After a couple of weeks check to see if the leaves are dry enough to crumble then take a bag, hold if underneath and snip the bundle off and into to the bag so as not to have your herbs crumbling all over the place.

Take them out of the bag and remove the stems. Put the leaves back in the bag and crumble them in your fingers. I had three separate batches of mint like this so I'll have dried mint for awhile.

I took that one little bundle of basil on the left and crumbled that too. But I also tried basil in oil.

Take your basil leaves, clean and dry them. Find a container that will hold them and start layering them in it, shaking some salt on the leaves as you go. When you have a few layers done fill the container with olive oil.

Cover and refrigerate. These should keep for months, just take the container out of the fridge awhile before using so the olive oil can liquiefy again.

And bonus, the oil will be infused with basil!