Food Waste Friday – How not to make rocket pesto!

If our food waste was going to get a school report for this week, it would probably read: “Could do better!”

Maybe my mind was taken off the half pot of mouldy yogurt I found at the back of the fridge by the enormous bag of rocket (arugula) that came with our fortnightly veg box last week.  I received some helpful readers' comments on using up yogurt a couple of weeks ago so there was really no excuse for mouldy yogurt!  

Nobody in the family likes rocket much apart from me, and I was going to be eating salad with rocket for breakfast, lunch and tea, if I didn’t do something with it quickly.

Enter rocket pesto!

I made my own without resorting to a recipe

I used most of the bag of rocket, some marked down parsley, cheaper than parmesan substitute – grana padano, blanched almonds instead of pine nuts (£3.49 for a teeny tiny bag – you must be kidding!), olive oil, salt and pepper.  I shoved it all in the food processor and whizzed it until it looked like pesto!

The verdict is that sometimes it’s best to use a recipe!  Somehow my quantities can’t be quite right, or I should not have been seduced by the marked down parsley. Although my pesto looks fantastic and has a wonderful consistency, it’s even more bitter and medicinal tasting than you’d expect for a pesto made with rocket.

Next time I will use a recipe like this one, (and I might be tempted to use half rocket/half basil):

• 100 g rocket, washed
• 25g Italian hard cheese, grated
• 25g pine nuts
• 4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic

My pesto won’t go to waste though.  Like medicine, I will use it in small doses in dressings and sauces.

And next week I really am aiming for NO WASTE!

Food Waste Friday was dreamt up by thefrugalgirl.com, to encourage people to use up food instead of waste it.