Garlic Mustard Pesto

garlic mustard pesto (photo by jhy)

You will need:

One packed cup of clean garlic mustard leaves
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pine nuts
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 cup common chickweed (Stellaria media) or fresh parsley leaves or 1 T dried parsley
1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup grated parmezan or romano cheese
salt to taste

garlic mustard leaves, harvested (photo by jhy)

Pick garlic mustard leaves, Alliaria petiolata. I filled a medium bowl with them, which packed nicely to just over a cup. Wash thoroughly.

Chop the nuts and garlic together. There is lots of leeway in this recipe. A food processor would be nice, but I don't have one. So I chopped these two things by hand to get them started. You will need some kind of processor or blender or even an immersion blender.

Then I used my immersion blender stick and just stopped it to clear the blade every few seconds. It worked fine. Put in a few leaves at a time until everything is coarsely chopped.

one packed cup of garlic mustard leaves (photo by jhy)

Then I started adding the olive oil, and that made the blender stick happier. Blend until you like the consistency. I didn't even measure the oil, but just added some until I liked the texture.

the immersion blender chopped the leaves (photo by jhy)