From Libellula's Kitchen & Land — easy italian recipe

Puntarelle alla Romana is a wonderfully crunchy, salty dish with just the right amount of garlic. It is one of our favorite winter salads! This salad is especially nice to serve post-Holiday season, as its crisp, refreshing flavors cut through the rich, heavy dishes we’ve been eating during the past couple of months. – Julia & Camillo  

There is one particular sauce in Italian traditional cuisine that, more than all others, is centred around extra virgin olive oil. Pesto! The central step in making pesto involves smashing or blending a nut (typically pine nuts) with garlic and olive oil, achieving a thick paste. A variety of herbs or vegetables can then be added to the nut mix to add flavor and dimension. This recipe uses wild garlic not only because it is a favorite ingredient among Italians, but also because it is an herb that can be foraged in woodlands throughout the Northern Hemisphere (and is often...