Basil plants for free – in five minutes

I can't smell basil without being whisked back to the greengrocer's in Rome where I first encountered fresh basil. Sent out to shop for tomatoes for dinner by the friend-of-a-friend I was staying with, I asked the shopkeeper, who was on the phone, for pomodori, and he weighed them out. Then I asked for basilico, and he gestured for me to take a massive bunch. I offered my cash and he waved it away, as if to say: you can't have tomatoes without basil.

The dinner that our host made that night is something I still love – I ate it this week. It's a more substantial version of insalata tricolore, adding pasta to the mozzarella, tomatoes, basil and avocado. I also like to add olives, sundried tomatoes and toasted pine nuts.

I like to have a constant supply of basil but it's tricky to grow from seed, and if you buy packets of fresh basil it dries out and goes brown very quickly. I find the easiest way to have enough for your summer eating (homemade pesto! Mmm) is to buy a pot of growing basil from the supermarket. The pots are always full to bursting with little basil plants to ensure a large head of pickable leaves.

All you need to do is take the little plants out, and repot them in a bigger container where they'll continue to grow, and each one will become a bushy plant, with lots of delicious basil leaves. So you'll have enough basil to see you through the summer. And if you have plants left when autumn approaches, take the pot indoors.