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. :|

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.