My mom helped me this week and picked up my CSA from Oasis-Bird in Hand, which was dropped off at the Market at the Fareway (located behind the Chestnut Hill Hotel) for me. When I went to pick it up from my mom a few days later, she told me there was a really cool item in it. I asked her what it was and she showed me the Garlic Scapes. For even my mom, who is an amazing cook, this item was new and she had never before eaten it. She had researched and discovered that you use the scapes just like garlic. She made a pasta dish with the garlic scapes that she liked a lot.
Intrigued, I googled “garlic scapes” and came across a pesto recipe on Serious Eats. I decided to tweak two familiar recipes to use my CSA ingredients. One was a recipe for grilled vegetables with pesto pasta from my mom and the other was a pesto I made a couple of weeks from Epicurious ago using the carrot greens from my CSA. I bought peppers from the grocery store and roasted the peppers and asparagus from the CSA in the oven with olive oil at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes. I then used broil for the last 5 minutes to make them crispy. I ended up with a delicious fettucine pasta with roasted peppers and asparagus tossed in a pesto sauce made with carrot greens, ¼ cup basil leaves, ¼ cup parmesan cheese, ½ cup olive oil, and a bunch of garlic scapes, all blended together. I even had leftover pesto to use in another dish and some leftover pasta to eat for lunch tomorrow.
Step 1: Cut and prepare the vegetables you want to roast
2. Chop up the garlic scapes before you blend them to make the pesto
Waaalah… you have dinner or breakfast!