Gardening Blues to Kitchen Bliss

Cilantro is my herbal arch-nemesis.

Bolted cilantro, ugh.

If I buy a bunch in the Produce department, I use about a quarter of it, leave the rest sitting in the bottom of my fridge, and find a brown puddle of cilantro goo 3 weeks later (YUCK!). 

Try growing it in my garden and it flowers seemingly within days (just see the embarrassing photo above) leaving it bitter (anyone happen to know why it flowers so quickly and if there's anything you can do about it??). 

I was pulling a bunch of this flowering cilantro out of my garden the other day thinking, "There must be something I can do with this." 

I took the whole mess home, opened up my favorite cookbook, The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, and bingo. Cilantro Pesto. I threw the leaves, the flowers, and the less fibrous stems into my Cuisinart food processor, and came up with a spread so extraordinarily delicious I proceeded to eat three times a day thereafter.

My favorite application? One afternoon I toasted some olive ciabatta, spread on a generous layer of cilantro pesto, and topped with smoke salmon, quickly finding a new favorite food.

May we never again find yucky brown cilantro goo in the bottom of our refrigerators!

Cilantro Pesto

Adapted from The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home

1 cup cilantro
1 cup fresh parsley
1/2 cup whole almonds
1 small chili (I used 1/8 teaspoon cayenne)
2 garlic cloves (I used a bunch of garlic scapes I had lying around)
2 tablespoons lime or lemon juice
1/4 cup vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste

Throw this all in your food processor and blend until smooth.