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The CSA has broadened my cooking horizons immensely. I get excited about certain produce I never thought would excite me before. The produce that falls in this category are greens of plants you usually don’t see in the produce section of the grocery store: cauliflower, broccoli, radish, turnip, and carrot greens.

I don’t remember ever seeing carrot tops growing up. I must have, my mom planted carrots a few times, but I really only remember the topless ones that came in a bag from the grocery store. When I suddenly found myself with CSA carrots with their tops on, I got excited to figure out a recipe to make with them. One of my goals is to throw away as little food as possible after all!

The first recipe that came to mind was pesto. Pesto = greens + nuts + oil + seasonings. You pretty much can’t go wrong with it and I make pesto out of so many different combinations of the above. It also allowed me to immediately prepare the carrot tops the very first day I received them so they would not go bad (I read on The Kitchn that removing the tops keeps carrots crunchy, and thus better, longer).

Pesto is also great because it freezes so well and is a great way to preserve the season for eating in later months. Make sure you freeze before putting in the cheese. I use ice cube trays and measure out a 1 tablespoons amount of pesto in each then freeze. Yesterday my landlord told me and he freezes his in muffin tins. This gives him bigger amounts and so that he does not have to use 4 cubes to make pasta but one big cube. Great idea, I might use it as well for my next go around. When you are ready to eat pesto, take the frozen cubes out, defrost/microwave, add parmesan cheese, and eat!

Note: There is some debate as to whether carrot tops are slightly poisonous or not. I read a lot about this and The Kitchn (sense a theme here?) has a great article. I eat them but I trim the leaves off the stalks as much as possible.

Carrot Top (Green) Pesto

Inspired by my mom’s pesto recipe, not sure where she got it.
Makes 1 and ¼ cups (20 tablespoons) pesto without parmesan cheese.
With parmesan cheese makes 1 and ¾ cups (28 tablespoons) pesto.

4 cups carrot tops (greens)*
3 garlic cloves (2 garlic scapes**)
1 cup walnuts
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
½ lemon juiced and zested
¾ cups olive oil***
½ cup parmesan cheese****

1. Cut carrot green “leaves” off the stalks the best that you can, then rinse and dry. I find a salad spinner works great for this. Additional step note: You can also blanch them if you wish to remove some of the bitter taste and keep the tops more green. I don’t for this recipe because I find the added lemon goes really well with it (and also keeps the greens green!), plus not a fan of removing the extra liquid. If you wish to blanch them – bring water on the stove top to a boil, add in carrot greens and boil for 2 minutes then remove and quickly put in cold water. Remove excess liquid before adding to food processor/blender.
2. Add greens and garlic to food processor (I have a Cuisinart) or blender. Blend until greens are fully broken down.
3. Add walnuts, black pepper, salt, lemon juice and lemon zest. Blend until the mixture resembles a paste and there are no more nut chunks. Taste and add more salt, pepper, or other herbs as desired. Remember the parmesan we add later will also be salty, so don’t over salt!
4. Scrape down sides and start blending again. Slowly add olive oil. Blend until you are done pouring oil.
   
5. Add parmesan cheese and pulse a few times until incorporated. You can also stir in cheese.

Here are a couple examples of how I have used the pesto so far:

Notes:

* I sometimes do part basil, part carrot tops and it tastes awesome! If you don’t have enough carrot tops or are afraid to go full carrot greens because of the bitterness, I highly suggest this modification.

** I used garlic scapes because they came with the carrots in our bi-weekly CSA. You can use garlic cloves themselves instead.

***You can always add more oil. I tend to prefer pesto that is less oil and more spreadable, but that is a personal preference. When I make pesto pasta I am usually adding a little more oil to the pasta directly and thus the pesto.

****I follow the general rule of 2 tablespoons parmesan to 3 tablespoons pesto. You can do less or more. I also use fairly “cheap” parmesan cheese because I find it works quite well and doesn’t overpower in taste.

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