Collard Greens Pesto

 What? Yes, you can pesto anything.  Normally when I make a salad pizza, I'll use an arugula pesto but this week I didn't have any left in the freezer, and I wasn't about to go and buy more greens when I had a bunch of collards, half a bunch of kale and a good amount of lettuce still sitting in the crisper.  And the collards were from the CSA almost 3 weeks ago!  I will say, that's the advantage of CSA/farmer's market produce, it's so generally so fresh that it lasts a long time in the fridge (especially if you clean and package it like this), unlike the bags and boxes of salad you get at the grocery store that seem to turn to slime after a few days. At any rate, I hadn't had a chance to cook the collards, but I had cleaned and chopped them as soon as I got them home (they fit in the fridge much better that way) so they were ready to be turned into my first attempt at collard pesto.  

Collard Pesto (Recipe adapted from Garden & Gun)

Makes about 12 ounces of pesto

• 4 cups chopped collard greens (a small bunch will give you this much)
  
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2/3 cup EVOO
• 2 oz grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 1 1/2 tbs lemon juice 
• 1/2 cup toasted pecan halves
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt (adjust to taste)
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

In a food processor, combine the pecans, garlic, ¼ cup of the oil, the cheese, lemon zest, and lemon juice and blend or pulse several times to combine. Add the greens and pulse a few times to get them started (you can use a spatula to push the greens down between pulses). Add salt and pepper Add the rest of the olive oil slowly through the feed tube while the food processor is running and process to the desired consistiency. Taste and adjust seasoning.  

This will keep several days in the refrigerator and also freezes well.

Here it is going on the pizza dough:

I use the parchment to help me slide the pizza onto the pizza stone, I bake the pizza for 5 minutes at 500°F, then remove the parchment and bake for 5 more minutes. 

The finished product - I drizzled the lettuce with about a tsp of olive oil and lemon juice and grated a bit of parm on it:

 Full salad pizza recipe and process here. Overall collard pesto was a success!