Return of the pesto!

Erik's made more pestos since my last post, but I forgot to take photos.

Tonight, though, he made beet-green pesto. That is pesto made from the greens on beets. Many people hardly know what beets look like, let alone their greens. Well, the greens are red and green. When you make them into pesto, it turns a beautiful/disgusting burgundy color. We took some photos of it in the mortar, but they looked kind of like murder, so we're only posting this one:


Startling, isn't it?

When we tasted it, we were shocked that this pesto tasted very mild -- no bite at all. Only after we were finished eating did Erik realize this bunch of beet greens was much bigger than the bunches of basil or arugula we usually use. So now we can't comment on the flavor of the pesto at all, only to say that it wasn't weird. :|

Harvest pesto photo

Erik made more harvest pesto today. You can see it's not a green pesto like the traditional recipe; it's more brown. It's on Chinese noodles in the foreground, and in the background, there's a bowl of the pesto by itself.

He also tried a new mortar-and-pestle technique, which yielded interesting results. Normally he pestles everything and then adds the oil at the end; this time he put the oil in at the beginning, which meant he had to grind everything extra-gently to avoid splashing oil everywhere. The end result had an overall smoother texture and milder flavor... but then we'd get these bigger uncrushed bits that delivered intense kicks of garlic flavor. Kind of uneven, but I'll eat pesto in any form.