Remember my little garden that I blogged about in June?  (http://cookingschoolblog.com/2012/06/20/summertime-cooking/)  Well, it’s been growing right along this summer, and I’ve been enjoying some delicious tomatoes and basil!  Lots of basil, to be exact.  I only have two plants, but they’ve really been growing!  I love using fresh basil in a variety of ways, like this Summer Corn Salad recipe.  (I also get to use my cherry tomatoes for this recipe, so it’s an added bonus!)

One of my favorite things to do with fresh basil is to make pesto.  I recently treated myself to a brand new food processor, and what better way to break it in than with some pesto, right?  I used this Classic Pesto recipe, and it’s so good!  I made a chicken veggie pizza with it, and it was fabulous!  I have quite a bit left over, though, so I’ve been looking through all of the great recipes on TasteofHome.com that use pesto.  It’s going to be difficult to decide which ones to try, because there are over 200!

Whenever I get a little extra time, I enjoy looking at other people’s food blogs, and getting some inspiration and new recipes from them.  Last summer, I came across a Spicy Pasta Salad with Smoked Gouda, Tomatoes and Basil recipe from The Pioneer Woman.  This salad has so many of my favorite things (including lots of basil), that I knew I had to try it.  It’s delicious as is, but I decided to experiment with it a little, so the next time I made it, I added some bacon and grilled chicken.  Wow – I loved it!  It has become my favorite salad recipe!  This summer, I found some smoked gouda cheese with bacon in it, so of course I had to try it in this salad.  It just gets better and better each time I make it!

If any of you have great recipes using basil, please share!  I’d love to try some of them