Seven Days of Mustard Greens - Day 2

As they say on the cooking shows, today's lunch features mustard greens done two ways. First, I made a Mustard Greens Pesto. I had made yummy kale pesto in the past -- my favorite recipe is from the cookbook "Farmer John's Cookbook: The Real Dirt on Vegetables" -- but I had never thought about using mustard greens until I saw this recipe on Pinterest. For this batch, I chose the traditional Green Wave mustard. If you've ever tried this mustard raw, you know it packs an almost wasabi-like wallop. In the pesto, the walnuts and olive oil mellowed it out so there was just a pleasant spicy afterburn. 

I used the pesto as part of Broiled Tomato Sandwiches with Feta and Mustard Greens. I was lucky enough to have some yellow heirloom tomatoes on hand (probably Yellow Brandywine) that we picked before Saturday night's frost. I sliced the tomatoes thickly, sprinkled them with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper, and ran them under the broiler for about 8 minutes. Meanwhile, I assembled a topping of shredded Rain Red mustard, feta cheese, a Serrano chili (chopped), a clove of garlic (pressed), salt, pepper, cumin and a dash of olive oil. I piled this on the broiled tomatoes, topped it all off with a sprinkling of Shaved Cheese Blend from Trader Joe's, and stuck them under the broiler for about 3 more minutes until everything was toasty. The finished tomatoes went on Focaccia rolls spread with the pesto. Yummy!