Pesto-inspired pasta tossing sauce

This week's pesto isn't a very green one, mostly because we didn't have too many greens sitting around, and those were beet greens. Erik fried them briefly in butter before making the pesto; the butter gives the sauce a roundness our raw pestos don't usually have. I think you could try this recipe with spinach too, or tender kale or chard.

Pesto-inspired Pasta Tossing Sauce

2 cups beet greens (stems removed)

1 tbsp butter
at least 1/4c toasted walnuts
at least 4 cloves garlic
at least 1/2 tsp coarse salt
at least 3/8c oil (we ran out of olive, and used canola)

1. Put butter in a sauté pan over high heat, until butter has melted. Add beet greens and fry for about 15 seconds.
2. Put greens, nuts, garlic, and salt into a mortar. Grind with pestle.
3. Stir in oil.

We ate this with thin Chinese noodles, and then Erik drizzled some over roasted chicken he made yesterday. He liked that too.