Something for Nothing

I'm not actually very enthusiastic about gardening. Well, no, that's not fair. I love watching the garden come to life, I love checking on my little garden beds, and I love most of all harvesting food from my very own garden beds. But I am a lazy gardener who does not, at least doesn't yet, enjoy the work that goes into a garden all that much. But I love the results and even my half-hearted efforts of the last four years have born some very rewarding fruit.

I planted radishes, a mescilun mix, red lettuce, white russian kale, arugula, and beets this spring. Soon after I planted, we started investigating a house. We weren't really looking to buy, but this house had everything we were dreaming of and . . . well, next thing you know, I was thinking to myself, "should I really bother with the garden, all the weeding and such? I mean, soon, this might not even be my garden." And, soon, the weeds started taking over. Everything still grew (other than the arugula, which didn't even start,but it was my first year trying it in the garden, c'est la vie)but other than harvesting the rewards, I've done nada. No weeding. No watering. Nothing. Its getting rather specularly wild back there.

I left several beds unplanted where I'd usually have bell peppers, onions, and tomatoes planted by now because it turns out we will be selling our home to the park district (we live right on a public park and they'd like to make more park out of our property) and buying a lovely new home right at the height of garden season. In these unplanted beds one of my very favorite weeds has taken over: lambsquarters. I have one whole bed so full of it and little else it looks like I purposefully planted it that way.

Many of us weed this stuff out all the time not knowing it is a tasty powerhouse of nutrition. Seriously, its a mild but delicious green, grows just about everywhere with no effort on our part, and is amazing for you. If you doubt me, check out the nutritional analysis here.



You can use lambsquarters any way you would use spinach, although I think of the taste as more like a mild asparagus. Here's a pic of it in its natural habitat, looks familiar, doesn't it? And here's a recipe for my favorite way to use it, in pesto.



Baa Baa Pesto
2 packed cups of fresh lambsquarters, leaves and very thin stems only
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, no stems, chopped up a bit
1/2 cup walnuts (toast them a bit in a skillet first for even richer flavor)
2 T extra virgin olive oil
2-3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
2T crumbled sheep feta from Prairie Fruits Farm in Champaign (feel free to sub in any other feta or 1/4 cup grated hard Italian cheese like Parmesan or Asiago instead)
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Throw it all in the food processor or bender and blend until it forms a paste. Tada!

The feta and walnuts in this recipe aren't super cheap on first blush, I admit, but I love feta because you need so little of it to get a flavor punch that I think it is more useful ounce for ounce than most cheeses. Its what I call a high-impact ingredient - a lot of bang for your buck. Two tablespoons is less than 2 ounces, leaving you plenty of extra feta for fancying-up your eggs in the morning and tossing in salads. And yeah, walnuts aren't cheap, but they are nutritionally fabulous, full of omega-3 fatty acids, and again, add a lot of flavor for your buck.

All said, I made this pesto for about $4 and it will be enough for two meals for our family, easy. I am tossing it with quinoa, cherry tomatoes, and summer squash tonight. Later this week I will slather it on as a base for homemade pizza and top with lots and lots of veggies.

Three more quick notes on this recipe:
1. Vegans, sub out the cheese for 2-4T of nutritional yeast (to your tastes), absolutely yummy!
2. This pesto freezes great, I put it in 1/2 pint Ball canning jars and throw it in the freezer for up to 3 months. Just make sure the container is freezer-safe and air tight and you are good to go.
2. If you are going to store the pesto for a day or longer the very top of it will darken and discolor. There's nothing wrong with it, but if you don't want it to discolor top it with a thin layer of olive oil after packaging to prevent it.