Rebecca Weger

Garlic scapes

This year I’ve been experimenting with making pestos.  My favorite so far has been the ramp pesto; the garlic greens pesto was a bit stringy due to the nature of the garlic greens.

On a recent night I made a garlic scape pesto with scapes from Stick and Stone Farm.  What I tend to do when making these pestos is to look up recipes online to get a rough idea of how to do things and then I just wing it.  The recipe I present below is not exactly what I made Saturday night but is a combination of things I have learned in my pesto adventures.

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch garlic scapes (approx 8oz or so, less than a pound)
• approx 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 to 1 cup olive oil (see below)
• 1/2 cup pine nuts
• salt and pepper

Cut scapes into 1-2 inch pieces and sautee in olive oil for 2-3 minutes.  Put scapes directly into food processor or blender and blend until a coarse paste forms.  Add cheese and blend again until coarse paste forms.  (Note: A small silicone scraper/spatula works very nicely to push the scapes down between bursts in the blender.  Do not use while blender is running unless you want garlic scape and silicone spatula pesto.)  Add olive oil in small amounts and blend.  (Note: I usually end up using too little olive oil and my pesto ends up a very thick paste.  You want your pesto to be thin enough to easily toss into pasta, so don’t be stingy with the olive oil.  Start with 1/2 cup and work your way to the desired consistency.)  Add pine nuts and blend, adding more olive oil if needed.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve over pasta.  Place leftover pesto in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Do folks have a favorite thing they like doing with garlic scapes?  Please share in the comments!

(note that the above post was written by my sweetie, Joseph)