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"It was not at all clear to me that you could do anything with it other than feed animals" - said my colleague about carrot greens
Photo: Sebastian Maas / DER SPIEGEL
There are hundreds of recipes for Italian pesto on the Internet, all of which are "super fast" and use "very few ingredients". All it takes is good olive oil, Parmesan cheese, a truckload of fresh basil, and an ounce of pine nuts. Excellent! But: The 50-gram bag of pine nuts alone can cost 60 to 150 euros per kilo. The rest of the ingredients are not yet in the shopping cart when you hit the floor in shock.
If you don't want to take out a mortgage on your parents' house, you can use one of my favorite secret weapons instead of pine nuts: peeled sunflower seeds.
Even in the organic market, they only cost three euros per kilo.
Peter Zwegat likes that. When roasted in the pan without oil, sunflower seeds develop a smell that is slightly reminiscent of roast chicken and are suitable as a topping for salads and pasta - or as a base for a delicious pesto.
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Because I am wearing my donation jogging pants today, I have a second savings tip.
The most important ingredient in this week's recipe is one that usually ends up wrongly in the organic waste bin or in the rabbit enclosure: carrot green is a wonderful herb with a taste reminiscent of parsley, spinach and celery.
If you throw that away, you're missing out.
As a city kid, I had to buy extra carrots to get the green gold, so these are just available today.
Leftover pesto can be kept in a screw-top jar in the refrigerator for about a week - so it's great to pre-produce if there are carrots on the menu another day.
In their place, fish, white meat or seitan chicken would also be suitable as a pairing today.
You need that for two people
200 grams of pasta
500 grams of carrots (ideally of a uniform size and thickness)
100 grams of carrot greens
100 grams of peeled sunflower seeds
2 cloves of garlic
1 lemon
some oil, salt and sugar
What does this cost?
If you have to buy the carrots like me, you pay 1.50 euros per serving.
With the "rabbit method" you land at 90 cents:
How long does it take?
About 45 minutes
How to make pesto from carrot greens
The recipe is really very simple!
To save all of our time, I'll be brief.
Roast the sunflower seeds without oil for about four to five minutes in the pan, swirling regularly.
They should be golden brown.
Important: When they are done, they have to be moved to another container, otherwise they will burn in the residual heat of the pan.
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Wash the carrot leaves thoroughly and chop them into small pieces.
Peel the garlic and also finely chop it.
Put both with the juice of a lemon and three quarters of the roasted seeds in a blender.
If you don't have one, use a hand blender or mortar - it just takes longer.
Puree and pour in the oil until it has a pleasantly creamy texture.
Season with plenty of salt.
Clean the carrots and cover them with water while lying in the pan.
Add a teaspoon of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt and cook for about ten minutes.
Turn after five minutes.
Cook thicker carrots longer, you can do it.
Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the packet.
Catch some of the boiling water when draining.
Mix pasta and pesto in a saucepan and dilute with the cooking water.
Then arrange on a plate, sprinkle with the remaining roasted seeds, add carrots and a little lemon.
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A feast for the eyes in terms of color - but does it also taste good?
My wife mumbles (with her mouth full): "Yo!"
Photo: Sebastian Maas / DER SPIEGEL
In a fine, vegan restaurant in the trendy district of a big city, you could easily charge 25 euros for the show-off plate.
But you don't have to - get in!
Did you recreate the recipe? Or do you know great dishes that cost little money?
Write to me - or send me a picture of it.