So I came across the Boston Localvore site when I was looking for a farm share to join. They have a blog, too! They are a bit surly, but I love surly.
Yesterday, I read that they received a bunch of garlic scapes in their share and made pesto. Having never seen a garlic scape in person (and not really knowing what it was) I didn’t care too much and focused on the part where they made fun of Pete Wells for being a pansy and complaining about money (he’s an editor at the NYT).
On my way home today I passed a farmers’ market and, lo and behold, there were garlic scapes! And they were cheap. Take that, Pete Wells (even though I still like your writing).
A tangle of scapes
They come all tangled like that. A garlic scape is the stem of a garlic plant before it flowers. Apparently they straighten up some and bloom, but we (people) usually eat them before that can happen.
Here’s a single, tangly scape.
I have to admit, I wasn’t too imaginative with these, as I was way too excited about the idea making a pesto from scratch. So I did what the localvore ladies did. It’s extremely easy.
1. Chop up scapes into bits an inch or so long.
2. Fight with the safety on your food processor.
3. Calm down and then process the bits into a chunky mixture.
4. Add grated Parmesan cheese and process some more.
5. Add olive oil and process after each addition until you like it.
6. Consume!
Optional: I stole this from the localvores as well. Fill an ice cube tray with the pesto and then freeze it. Garlic scapes are pretty much only available in late June or early July, so now I can have this pesto whenever I want, in neat individual-sized portions. Ta-da!
Nice! I do this with lemon juice too. I buy a dozen or so of organic lemons, zest some of them, juice all of them. I freeze the juice in cube trays and then pop them out into a plastic baggie. Not that its very hard to keep fresh lemons, but I’m lazy about breaking out our juice press just to make a dressing, or in the middle of cooking. And I don’t prefer to just roll/cut/squeeze because I don’t like to bother with the seeds. I probably seem so lazy right now…
I also freeze the zest in little teaspoon portions. Same reasons.
I also freeze whole ginger because it is so (SO) much easier to grate.
Your blog is beautiful. Good work!
Thanks! I’m totally going to try that with ginger and lemons.