dandelion and almond pesto

The children and I went out to the backyard today, and that's no easy task, because if we get out of the building we usually want to make good use of the effort).  I gave them each desperately needed haircuts.  Well, I gave Temima a haircut, while Shua tried to escape every which way around the building to the road.  I caught him, just barely.  He had fun with the backyard play-things as well.  Temima really loved the idea of leaving her hair for birds to make nests with.

While we were out there, I saw a whole lot of dandelions, and having heard mention of pesto recently, a light bulb went off over my head.  I love the idea of gathering wild edibles, especially invasive species, but dandelion greens fried up are a bit chewy for my taste.  When I saw them today, and nibble a bit, I realized that they could make a good pesto.  So off we went gathering as much dandelion greens as we could.  Temima pointed out some garlic mustard as well, and so we added some of that to our pile as well.

So, here is the recipe, for your pleasure.  It was, as Temima says, scrumptious.  Sorry, I don't pay much attention to measurements - use your best judgement.

Gather greens.  Wash greens.

Put them in a blender.  Also put some raw almonds, coconut oil and olive oil in there.  Almonds are not strong tasting, so they work well.  Pine nuts would be lovely.  Walnuts could be good, but are somewhat bitter.

 Blend.  Add a light sprinkling of salt, a heavy dusting of powdered garlic, some dried basil, and whatever else you'd like.

Mix with pasta.  Next time I will add sun-dried tomatoes and Parmesan cheese.










I'm already planning to go a-dandelion-huntin' and gather up much more.  It was that good.  Basil is expensive!  I'm going to be making lots of this to freeze for the winter.  I love that its free greens, organic and healthy.