Pea Shoot Pesto

It started off being a "normal" Thursday for us.  Then I got an email from my favorite farm Fat Moon giving me a heads up on what they were picking today.  Apparently my girl Elizabeth (head cheese at Fat Moon Farm) was overloaded with pea shoots and felt the need to send me an email about it.  I love her. Elizabeth also let me know she was holding some garlic scapes aside for me (more to come on those soon too!).  She could possibly be the best "foodie" I know!

I grabbed my babies from school and made a bee line to the farm.  My middle one had a hard day at school (damn girl drama!) and one of the women that works at the farm immediately took my brood to go pick our shoots.  Apparently she had been a preschool teacher for many years and made everyones life a little brighter today.  I like that the farm is our family happy place...I will be writing quite a bit more about them in coming posts!

So with my children happily plucking pea shoots from the earth and Elizabeth and I catching up on all things food (and girl drama!), she says to me that she needs a recipe for pea shoots and was thinking of may be a pesto...I was so excited!  I had thought the same thing last week but the children and I ate all of the pea shoots right out of the bowl before we could make anything with them!  I packed up all my greens and children and flew home (not over the speed limit of course!) to pull something together.

The largest went to ice her broken finger and the smallest scattered as soon as we arrived back at home but the middle one stayed with me to create.  We turned on some music and got to cooking and little by little we came up with something that we were both happy with...a small miracle!

Here's what you need:

• ¼ cup Pine Nuts (toasted)
• ¼ cup Walnuts (toasted)
• 7 cloves Garlic
• 5 cups lightly packed Pea Shoots
• 1 cup Parsley (I use flat leaf)
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• ½ teaspoon fresh Pepper
• zest and juice of 1 Lemon
• 1 cup Parmesan
• 1 ½ cup Olive Oil

First step is in a small saute pan toast the pine nuts on low...if you're like me, don't leave the stove.  Ever.  I have burned more nuts walking away "just for a second" more than I care to admit.  LOL!

Once they are a golden gorgeous color put them in your food processor (this can also be done in a blender!) then move on to the walnuts and repeat.  Make sure you peel the garlic and then add them as well.  Now turn that baby on and puree the hell out of them.

Once the nuts and garlic are pureed add in the pea shoots a cup or two at a time.  Next comes the parsley, juice, salt and pepper, zest and parmesan...add them and buzz away.  Once you start adding the olive oil (slowly please, don't just dump it in!) things should start coming together nicely.

I am pretty excited with this version of "pesto" but since Elizabeth had so many pea shoots, we have plenty more to experiment with.  Tonights fun was tossed with some pasta and everyone under this roof loved it.  The two that take lunch to school were already requesting it for lunch before they were even done with dinner!  

Bon Appetit...it's time to eat!