I love fresh basil as many of you reading this probably do also. However, once it is cut from the plant or taken home from the store it starts to turn black – that is my experience. My mother would freeze whole leaves of basil in a storage container, but flavor-wise I wasn’t satisfied with this method. So how do we enjoy our basil in the Winter or when we don’t have a garden to grow it in? My friend Pat takes it off the plant as she needs it, but when the growing season is over, she takes her basil, cleans it and puts it in the blender with some extra virgin olive oil and freezes it. When she needs it, she chops off what she needs.  Now I do the same thing.  We put it in a squeeze bottle also which is very convenient.  Refreezing after using a portion of it doesn’t seem to ruin it either.  I have this blender mixture of fresh basil and olive oil in a squeeze bottle and a regular container in the freezer all year round now, it’s great!  The chopping of the leaves releases more basil flavor.  The squeeze bottle is very convenient for topping off focaccias and capresi salads. So enjoy your “fresh” basil all year round!