I will admit that before this season I never did anything with my carrot tops except to feed the pigs at Springdell last year or compost them. It really is a shame because last year in our trial garden (just a tiny spot on the side of the house to see if we liked gardening) we tried to grow carrots and had beautiful carrot tops. The carrots themselves we a bit of a failure but the tops were beautiful…and went straight to the mouths of Ham and Cheese, the Springdell pigs. Then the talk about carrot top pesto started this year and now I am hooked. Last week I made that really cool version of pesto that included citrus and it was killer on steak. Tonight I decided to go a more traditional route with a classic pesto since it was for pasta. Both of them delicious depending on what you are going for.
I started with 4 tablespoons of pine nuts and 2 cloves of garlic and pulsed to get s rough chop.
Next I added all of the carrot top greens and a full handful of the beautiful basil from the share.
After a rough chop you drizzle in olive oil while the machine is running. Hand mix in a little (or a whole lot in my case) of freshly grated Parmesan cheese and voilà, you have pesto. I mixed this with pasta right after it was drainedso it was still steaming hot. The smell of the pesto hitting the pasta as you combine it is unbelievable, it filled my kitchen and before I knew it my husband was peeking over my shoulder asking what the smell was and can he eat it.
I had made a pork roast to go along with the pesto pasta and I boiled all of my corn on the cob as well. To make the corn a little fun, and a lot delicious, I very finely chopped more basil and after buttering the corn we sprinkled the basil on top. Beautiful color and really great summer flavor.
Dessert tonight was super easy. I put a bowl of the sugar plums on the table and D.O.N.E. These little guys are almost like candy. I had to limit the number of them that my kiddos could eat.
We are off to the Anderson’s house for Sunday night dinner tomorrow, hope you check in tomorrow night to see what Jess has cooking. Until then, Enjoy!