Friday, June 11, 2010

Garlic Scape Pesto!

On Tuesday I picked up half a pound of garlic scapes at the farmers market:
A scape is the flowering stem which rises from the roots or crown of a plant. A garlic scape has a mild garlic flavor without the bite of too much garlic (to me there is no such thing). My impetus for getting the scapes was pesto. Garlic scape pesto is a great alternative to traditional basil pestos. Pesto freezes extremely well so I decided to make a larger quantity for storage purposes.
Ingredients:
1 cup of garlic scapes, cut into 1/4 to 1/2 inch pieces (approx. 1/4 lb)
1/3 of a cup of slightly crushed walnuts
3/4 of a cup of olive oil (a little less is perfectly fine)
1/2 cup of cubed or grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt (I prefer kosher salt)
a pinch of black pepper

First the scapes are cut into appropriate sized pieces and place them into the bowl of a food processor:
Next add the walnuts, cheese, salt, and pepper to the bowl:
Blend the ingredients until they are well combined:

Slowly add about half the oil and blend again. Repeat this process with remaining oil blending until desired texture is reached:

This yields about 6 ounces of garlicky delicious pesto. A serving is anywhere between 1 and 2 tablespoons depending on preference.
With my 1/2 lb of scapes I ended up with 2 batches of scape pesto in need of a home. I spooned them into a mini ice cube tray and froze them:

Each cube is 1.5 to 2 teaspoons worth of pesto:

Each batch yields about 36 delicious cubes. One serving is between 3 and 5 cubes depending on preference.
Now we have enough garlic pesto for the foreseeable future. It goes great with tofu, chicken, pasta (hot or cold) omelette's, pizza.

5 comments:

Megan Johnson said...

looks AMAZING!

Shaheen said...

I don't think I have ever seen garlic scape here. It looks Fantastic and I like your transformation of your find: pesto. Wise to freeze it in individual cubes. Enjoy those quick dinners.

Thomas said...

Nice! I've yet to make pesto with my scapes...I really need to get one of those fancy ice cube trays!

Fred said...

Thanks Megan!

Mango - I've been looking more into food storage to make the market purchases and garden harvests last as long as possible so this one seemed like a no brainer. I'll be eating scape pesto for months and months to come it seems.

Thomas- The 'fancy' tray was found at either target or one of our local super markets. Nothing fancy at all, in fact the ice cubes are usually to small, but the pesto cubes are a perfect size!

Unknown said...

GREAT IDEA! I will definitely give this a try!