Quick Tip—Carrot Tops

I was needing a little pesto last night to put on a pizza, but sadly I found myself without a large enough pile of parsley, and I didn't want it to be overly basil-laden. So, having enjoyed a small carrot harvest this week, and not liking to throw away half my vegetable when the leaves were so green and fragrant, I topped my carrots and used the carrot greens as I normally would have used parsley in a pesto. I had heard of this before, but had never had the chance to try it out until last night's fateful pizza. It was incredible. I added a generous handful of boxwood basil, a little too much salt, some pepita, and whirred it around with some olive oil. It was a perfect substitute for pizza sauce on our garden veggie pizza. In case you're freaking out, this is a natural substitutions—carrots are actually part of the parsley family—a fact I learned while researching caterpillar I found munching nonstop through my carrots one day. It was, in fact, a parsleyworm, which is quite fond of noshing on plants in the parsley family, including parsley, cilantro, cumin, parsnips, celery, and carrots. Now you know.