Strawberry Basil Salad Dressing

Well, I finally figured out what to do with the basil that would take advantage of how aewsome it is.  Tuesday night I had tossed some in with the strawberry/sugar mixture I had made for some strawberry shortcake.  The result was amazing, and it reminded me of some strawberry basil salad dressing I used to pick up on occasion at the Royal Oak, MI farmers market.  I had kept an empty bottle of the stuff in hopes of trying to replicate it, but I think somehow it ended up in the garbage during the move.

After looking up some recipes online, I decided to try this one.  After a bit of tweaking (a half pound of strawberries got me to about 2 cups according to the blender, but it was way salty) I came up with this:

Strawberry Basil Salad Dressing

Ingredients:
1 lb strawberries, de-stemmed and halved (locally grown and really ripe preffered)
0.7 oz basil, stems included (more or less to taste, start with about half and increase as needed)
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon balsamic vinegar (I used the 4-leaf aged type.  Start out with 1/2 Tablespoon for 3-leaf or 1 teaspoon for unmarked or 2 or less leaves)
1 Tablespoon agave nectar (or sugar) 
Zest and juice of 1/2 to 1 lime (or about 1/2 lemon)
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
pepper to taste

Toss everything but agave nectar/sugar in the blender and give it a whirl.  Add more basil, sweetener, lime/lemon, salt and pepper to taste. 

While it's not quite as tasty as the salad dressing I remember (though I had to resort to Califrornia strawberries, since no one at the farmers market had local berries), it is still very good and I will probably be playing around with it for a while to perfect it.  Local ripe berries would greatly improve the flavor, but if you have to use grocery store berries, it's best to get ones where the display smells like strawberries from several feet away.  Frozen berries might work also, if you can find ones without sugar added.