Carrot Tops

It was a speedy trip to the market this week as the dark clouds were coming in over London; we just made it home before the downpour. As we are out quite a lot of evenings this week it was a smaller shop than normal and came to just a tad under £18. As well as lots of fruit and veg (yes gooseberries again, Joel has assured me he will be making his mum’s gooseberry cake recipe) we also bought some amazing award winning cheese from local Wildes Cheese.

I really hate wasting food, any left over fruit and veg we have gets frozen to cook with later or added to smoothies or juices. I like to try and use all parts of the fruits and vegetables, beetroot leaves, broccoli stalks, citrus peel. So when I was at the market and saw a lovely bunch of rainbow carrots with their lovely feathery tops I knew I wouldn’t want to throw them away.

After a little thought, and some Internet research I decided to give carrot top pesto a go. It isn’t a true pesto in that I didn’t use any nuts as I wanted the delicate fresh taste to really shine through, but feel free to throw a few in.

We used our pesto simply, on pasta, on steamed new potatoes, and mixed with a little oil and cider vinegar as a salad dressing. I’m sure it would be great drizzled on roast vegetables or on pizza too.

I don’t have a food processor (our tiny kitchen doesn’t have much space for gadgets that take up so much space) so I made this the hard way with a pestle and mortar, but please feel free to pulse with a food processor instead.

Carrot Top Pesto

•  A large bunch of carrot tops – roughly chopped
• 4 tbsp of olive oil.
• 2 tbsp of fresh lemon juice
• 1 garlic clove.
• 75g (ish) of parmesan cheese.

If using a pestle and mortar add half of each ingredient to the mortar and bash like crazy until a slightly chunky paste is formed or your arms give out (mine did before my pesto reached perfect smoothness), repeat with the second half of the ingredients (sorry!).

If using a food processor add all ingredients to the processor blend until your preferred pesto smoothness.

The pesto will keep for a few days in the fridge but the fresher the better.

I am afraid I do not have any other suggestions really for carrot tops, but I would love some other ideas if anyone has any.