Fresh Produce

Tuesday's are CSA day!  This bag is very large and because we are getting cabbage now, it's quite heavy too.  This week's bag had romaine, beets, Swiss chard, green onions, a very large head of cabbage, kohlrabi, two large bunches of kale, a couple of garlic heads, and a handful of herbs!  I share my bag with Janie and still it is a lot of green.  I have started blanching the kale and freezing it so I can still make green smoothies while the snow flies.

For the last couple of weeks our bag has had garlic scapes.   Amanda Soule, whose Soule Mama blog I read, has written about these and she is always quite excited when they have garlic in their garden.  The first thing I tried was sauteing them in a stir fry.  Meh.  I didn't find them as tender as I expected.  But yesterday....

Garlic Scape Pesto!!

Wow!  This is amazing.  The recipe is from Epicurious and found here. 

Pasta with Garlic-Scape Pesto – adapted from Epicurious, May 2012 by Ian Knauer

    10 large garlic scapes

    1/3 cup unsalted cashews

    1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan

    Kosher salt and black pepper

    1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

    ½ teaspoon lemon juice

    1 pound spaghetti

Make the pesto: Puree the garlic scapes, cashews, Parmesan, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper , and ½ teaspoon lemon juice in a food processor until very finely chopped. With the motor running, slowly pour the oil through the opening. Season the pesto with salt and pepper to taste. (The pesto keeps in the fridge, covered, for 1 week or frozen for a month.)

In a large pot of heavily salted boiling water, cook the spaghetti until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta-cooking water, then drain the pasta. Whisk together 2/3 cup of the pesto and the reserved pasta water then toss with the pasta. Season with salt and pepper to taste and serve right away.

 

Fabulous.

(In the picture, the scapes, of course, are the odd looking curly greens in the front.  They are the stems and unopened flower buds of the garlic bulbs.)