Sami Grover
DCL
Sara already listed basil as one of the 3 herbs you should be growing at home - it's tasty, versatile and easy to grow. And if that weren't reason enough - there's the quintessential taste of summer: pesto. Recipes for pesto are a dime-a-dozen, and most are pretty similar. Emeril already gave us one pesto recipe with his Chicken and Pesto Linguine, and mine is little different (although I sometimes like to saute the pine nuts in the olive oil until they are golden.) But what I rarely hear about is freezing pesto - which is strange, because it's a wonderful way of retaining summer flavors well into the autumn.
What my wife and I like to do is make up a big batch of pesto in the food processor, save a little for dinner, and then freeze the rest in an ice cube tray sprayed with oil. We cover that tray with plastic wrap and freeze overnight, then squeeze out the cubes and place them in a double freezer bag. Over the next 3 or 4 months we use the pesto as needed - either thawing it out, or simply chopping it up and adding it to warm dishes.
The flavor is preserved pretty well - though it's nothing like a fresh batch - and it makes for a quick and economical lunch. I have heard some folks argue that you should omit the parmesan, and simply add that to your dish as you thaw the pesto - but that seems a little too complicated in my book.
