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Carrot Top Pesto nestled between roasted delicata squash
and carrot-quinoa salad |
I hate wasting food. I'm sure I'm not alone in this sentiment, so I'm sure I'm also not alone in always trying to figure out what to do with all the extra greens that accumulate from purchases from the Farmers' Market: carrots, beets, etc. Sometimes this ends horrifically- I tried to save the greens from beets once but before I could figure out what to do with them, they begin emitting the foulest odor I had ever experienced, necessitating their swift departure from my apartment. However, a quick search on the handy internet turned up some non-vegan recipes from carrot greens, which were this week's puzzle. Armed with my prior knowledge of pesto and a fair level of confidence that ingesting the carrot greens wouldn't kill me, I set to making carrot top pesto. The result? A creamy pesto that tastes quite traditional, but with a hint of earthiness underneath. Lucky you though- you get to brag about how to you used all of the carrot bunch you bought at the FarMar, and isn't it delicious?
Carrot Top Pesto
1 bunch worth of carrot greens
1/2 cup fresh basil
1/4 cup pine nuts (walnuts would work too!)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon salt
4-6 cloves garlic (I used five)
Olive Oil (enough for the pesto to emulsify in the food processor)
I'm sure there's a more proper way of doing this, but I threw everything but the olive oil in the food processor, pulsed it a few times, scraped down the sides and poured in the olive oil while it ran, occasionally stopping to scrape down the sides.
