Arugula pesto

While arugula is no tomato, it is a fine winter green that satisfies my need to have a decent salad regardless of the weather outside. In the summer, I make salads almost entirely from my tomatoes and, I think, I'll be making my winter salads mainly from arugula for many future winters.

Arugula is so easy to grow, delicious and lends itself to things other than salad. It's diverse, people. Dynamic. Flexible.

It is the tomato of the leafy green world.

If you don't believe me, let me tell you all the things I've done with this easy crop that grew abundantly from one (one!) packet of $.99 seeds:

• Swapped it for basil in Thai Chicken Soup 
• Put it on pizza
• Added it to tomato soup
• Used it as greens in a million salads
• Made arugula pesto
• Added it to rice noodles
• Ate it straight from the garden
• Slid it into sandwiches instead of limp lettuce
• Chopped it up in tuna salad
• Froze it into cubes for future use
  

Really now. That's a lot of work for one packet of seeds that ended up taking very little room in my garden.The space I planted was about 2'x2'. And all the water it needed came from The Sky. Plus, it didn't even balk at frost, wind, cold or rain. And when I harvested it and then let it sit in the sun in a big black bucket for 4 hours, it perked right back up when I rinsed it in the sink under cool water.

If nothing else, it's resilient. And good for you, too.

All good reasons to love this crop and then maybe grow it on your own. And, if you're brave enough to try something as exotic and bizarre as pesto made from something other than basil (Thank you to Farmgirl Susan for this arugula pesto recipe), try it out.

Oh yes, you want this.

Treat it as you would any delicious pesto - spread it on something, stir it into some pasta, swap it for your usual sauce on pizza, dip something in it or just eat it with a spoon.

Now that we're all Arugula Wise, we can do whatever we want, including making whole salads from this one green and then also making pesto from it while we miss tomatoes. And basil. And fresh corn. OH! And green beans!

You get the idea.