I told you I had fun stuff planned! So, from now on, every Wednesday I will have an Over The Humpday Challenge to overcome. For the very first OTHdC (c'mon, you know you love the acronyms), I was very excited to put a new-found ingredient to some good use:
GARLIC SCAPES!!!
I first saw them on Angela's blog, and then I spied them at our weekly farmer's market with a sign that said "Last Week!!" and snatched a big ole bag of them up....with no idea what in the world I would do with them. Luckily, destiny called and lo and behold, the stand that sold the scapes had little recipes printed out from garlic scape pesto. Sounds like a good plan to me.
After reviewing the recipe, I decided to just use my regular pesto recipe and sub the basil & garlic clove for just the scapes. Into the food processor went:
-12 garlic scapes
-2 T pine nuts
-2 T extra virgin olive oil (pesto is raw, so the more flavorful the olive oil, the more flavorful the pesto!)
-5 T parmesan cheese
-pinch coarse salt (we actually didn't have any, but it is recommended - makes it easier on the blades)
-water (about a glass) to add as needed
I did chop up the scapes to help the food processor a little.
WHOA these babies are strooooong! This pesto was uber-garlicky, to the point of being spicy, but I and my taste testers thought it was great! I tossed it with some whole grain fusilli with a bit of basil torn and sprinkled on top:
I like to think my cooking professor in Florence would be proud :)
I made it a second time (SO many scapes!) and instead of pasta, threw it in a bowl with a can of cannellini (white) beans, fresh tomato, and black olives - this time adding a touch of ricotta cheese to the sauce. Again, success! We had plenty left over and ended up using it as the sauce for a bag of tortellini for dinner. TOO easy!
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Garlic scape pesto: a dip, spread, sauce, side dish, main attraction, snack, omelette filler....oh, the list goes on.
OTHd Challenge: Garlic Scapes? Accomplished.
~Namaste~
We do TOO have coarse salt--look up on top shelf for Kosher Salt--it's what I put in our salt grinder.
ReplyDelete(just to prove your doting mother is a regular and AVID "Bleader" of yours)
Love you!
Mom
ps--Pesto was GREAT. Had a wasabi-esque sinus-clearing quality to it-- positively piquant!!!