Cilantro tends to come in all at once (it's good to keep sowing it throughout the season as it bolts quickly once the summer warmth arrives, no matter what you do!) So, preserve your precious Cilantro harvest and make Cilantro Pesto!
Cilantro pesto with almonds, olive oil, lime juice, fresh garlic or garlic scapes, and spicy green chiles like Jalapenos or serranos is awesome. :) Great with chips, or tossed with pasta or vegetables.
Simple Spicy Cilantro Pesto Recipe:
Ingredients:
1/2 Cup almonds, walnuts or pine nuts (optional)
1+ Tbsp olive oil
1+ Tbsp olive oil
Fresh Parmesan Cheese
(Optional, 1-2+ Tbsp to taste, add more to decrease bitterness)
Lime or Lemon juice (half a lime/lemon)
3-5+ Garlic Cloves or 5+ Garlic Scapes*
1-3+ spicy green chiles like Jalapeños or Serranos
(use any hot pepper or chile on hand, or even hot pepper flakes
if you have nothing fresh from the garden!)
(Optional, 1-2+ Tbsp to taste, add more to decrease bitterness)
Lime or Lemon juice (half a lime/lemon)
3-5+ Garlic Cloves or 5+ Garlic Scapes*
1-3+ spicy green chiles like Jalapeños or Serranos
(use any hot pepper or chile on hand, or even hot pepper flakes
if you have nothing fresh from the garden!)
Directions:
Add all the ingredients into a food processor and process until the desired consistency. Enjoy this pesto on tacos or in burritos, with chips, pitas, on sandwiches & wraps, or toss it with pasta or rice for a treat! You won't be able to get enough of it, especially if you add a lot of hot peppers to the mix!
Add all the ingredients into a food processor and process until the desired consistency. Enjoy this pesto on tacos or in burritos, with chips, pitas, on sandwiches & wraps, or toss it with pasta or rice for a treat! You won't be able to get enough of it, especially if you add a lot of hot peppers to the mix!
Garlic scapes are the flower bud of a hardneck garlic plant – in the spring, scapes grow from the garlic bulb and curl, that's when it's time to harvest! By cutting them off, it tells the garlic to put more energy into the bulbs. Plus, you get two harvests of garlic this way, in the form of scapes and later the bulbs. The scapes are delicious and have great garlic flavor, they're perfect for cooking or using in pestos or salsas. Garlic is super easy to grow, and easy to propogate so you have an endless supply of garlic to go with your chiles and tomatoes.
Let your cilantro bloom, the bees and pollinators will love it, plus you'll get seeds if you let them dry on the plant, so you can resow your cilantro all spring/summer/fall. You can even grow cilantro in cold frames and greenhousese in the winter months. If you're like us, you can't get enough of it!
