Wild greens as pesto

Happy Earth Day 2019. Whether you are getting out and working with the plants, creating a world free to toxic waste or just getting out and taking a walk, I would love to share with you my love for our planet. Our earth has been destroyed by so many and we need to work on stopping not only pollution but especially on cleaning up our food source and getting the pesticides outlawed. The toxins that are being sprayed on our food are creating chronic inflammation in our bodies which is creating a world where so many are sick. Not only are people sick but they have no idea why they are sick. Think about it, have you thought about so many that are living with digestive issues, they have cancer and so many other "dis-eases" in their bodies. I'm not saying that our toxic world is creating all of this however, I truly believe that if each and everyone of us made just a little effort to clean up our earth, choose to eat organic foods and ate as much wild food that we can that one day we can make a positive impact on this great earth of ours.

So lets talk about wild foods. Some wild foods I love:

Garlic mustard is an invasive plant. If you look around in early spring, especially in the northeast you will see it everywhere. Just putting it in a compost pile will not erradicate it, you actually need to throw it out. However, take the leaves an eat them and just get rid of the roots. The roots actually taste like horseradish and you can use them just like you might use horseradish. I love to make a pesto with the leaves of the garlic mustard and sometimes combine it with nettles, chickweed and / or dandelion greens. It is delicious.

When you harvest nettles you need to use gloves to harvest them or they will "sting" you They do not have thorns, but they do have hairs on them that will sting you, they are formic acid and the sting will subside, but try to not get stung If you boil the leaves and stems for a few minutes the hairs become inert and do not sting.

Here's my recipe:

take 3-4 cups of greens - I used 3 cups garlic mustard tops and 1 cup of cooked nettles

2 garlic cloves

1 cup walnuts (you can use pine nuts or whatever nut you like, or just leave them out if you choose)

1 cup Parmesan cheese (or use nutritional yeast if you can't do dairy - how much? just put it in to taste)

salt and pepper to taste

3/4-1 cup olive oil

put everything except the olive oil in a powerful blender like a Vitamix or use a food processor, begin to process the ingredients and slowly pour in the olive oil until your pesto looks processed enough Then put in a bowl and refrigerate it.

Use it on pasta, on top of fish, on a cracker or whatever you like pesto on. In the summer, do this recipe with fresh basil or parsley from your garden. Yummmm.

Enjoy, leave a comment for me, let me know how you like it.