Horseweed pesto with foraged backyard weeds

In the winter of 2021, when Texas was completely covered in layers of ice and snow, experiencing completely unprecedented levels of prolonged cold, we lost many of the bushes from the front of our house. 

These bushes, while not exactly my style, were planted originally when the house was built in 1974, making them a touch older than I am. These were large bushes too, over 4 feet tall, and each covering a diameter of about 6 feet or so. They left a considerable amount of bare ground in their absence. 

Since then, my husband and I have been at an impasse on what to do with the space. Ultimately we want to cover it with low-water, low-maintenance (no maintenance, really) native plants or shrubs, but everything we've tried to do ourselves has been . . . unattractive at best or straight up dies within days at worst. We will most likely have to hire a landscaper who specializes in that sort of thing, but for now, we have better things to spend money on. 

Right now, its a very messy patch of wild plants--weeds to be honest, which I try to keep below the legal height (12") for weeds in our town. I would love if native or low-water wildflowers would move in, and I've tried to plant daisies, lavender, sage. . .but mostly just the wild lettuce abounds. 

I don't care for wild lettuce, its quite bitter. 

Horseweed patch last week, 
this week it was over 12 inches tall!

On the plus side, a large patch of horseweed has taken over the area near the house, FINALLY giving me access to enough clean horseweed to cook with. You see, I usually find horseweed in all sorts of unsavory areas, such as the cracks in the sidewalk in downtown Dallas. Sometimes it even grows up through the storm drains from the sewer. Not appetizing. 

So even though I've known about horseweed for years, this has been the first chance I've had to really experiment with it in the kitchen, from a source I know to be clean and contaminate free. 

My husband, who prefers a tidy yard, is being extremely patient with me, so long as I keep it from growing too tall, as horseweed can grow to nearly 5 feet!

I was doing alight for a while nipping bits here and lopping the tops of plants there, but all of the sudden the patch decided it was gonna GROW. In one week the plants ranged from 4" - 6" to 12"-18", and my husband was like, "we need to harvest and use a LOT of horseweed this weekend".

The largest plant in the yard, separate from the main patch. 
It shot up to 2feet from 8inches in one week!

With that in mind, I decided to try a pesto, and I'm glad I did. 

A pesto is one of the best ways to get a comprehensive sense of the flavor profile of a plant. Just nibbling on a leaf really doesn't give your palette enough to draw on. When I taste horseweed raw, all I taste is herbs, mostly oregano and parsley. While horseweed tastes great raw, when cooked a whole new array of flavors open up. 

Honestly the plant tastes like an herbal blend. I get the freshness of parsley upfront, with a citrus-y brightness, like a mix of lime and grapefruit zest, after that the herbal oregano flavor hits, and then the sweetness of anise on the back of the palette. Really quite spectacular. 

People keep telling me I need to try horseweed tea, and while I'm generally not a weedy tea kinda gal, the flavor of the pesto and the smell of the cooked horseweed makes me want to try it. 

Disclaimer: At first I thought the walnuts were too strong for the horseweed, but after tossing it with the pasta, they mellowed out and the flavors really came together. That said, I would use fewer walnuts next time. One thing I would recommend is cutting down the number of walnuts you use, as indicated by my picture above. 

Horseweed pesto

1 colander full of horseweed leaves and very soft tops 

1 1/2 lb dried pasta 
3 tablespoons of walnuts
4 oz of parmesan or other hard cheese, or vegan cheese, roughly sliced
1/3 cup of olive oil + extra 

3 cloves of garlic, sliced

salt 

1. Start around 4-6 cups of lightly salted water boiling in a large pot for the pasta. 
2. Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a small frypan; toast the walnuts, tossing occasionally, until blackened on at least one side. Remove the nuts from the pan.
3. Heat more olive oil in the frypan, add in the garlic and sauté, stirring, until garlic is fragrant, soft and ever so slightly darkened. Remove from heat. 
4. When the water comes to a boil, blanch the horseweed before straining out with a slotted spoon. Then add the pasta to the water. 
5. While the pasta continues to cook, add the blanched horseweed, the blackened walnuts, the cheese, garlic and olive oil to a food processor and puree. If needed, pause to push down the sides before continuing. Taste and season with salt as needed. 
6. Toss with the cooked pasta, I found that this coats about one and a half pounds of pasta to the coverage I like, shown in the pic at the top. 

This pesto is delicious immediately, but it's just as good reheated later, as the flavors will come together more. 

You can make this dish vegan with vegan cheese.