The Great 'Scape

Your at the first CSA pick up of the year, you have your basket and your all excited about the goodies your about to take home and enjoy - lettuce, radishes, green onions, so far so good you know just what to do with this stuff and then you see it a basket full of green curlicue things that you have no idea what to do with (are these actually meant for pick up or did a basket of weeds get left on the table by accident) So you kinda smile and pass them over.  But wait -STOP your passing up one of the yummiest spring treats on that table!  THE GREAT GARLIC SCAPE!

The scape is the flower head of hard neck garlic and in the spring (or fall) once you see this start to curl its cut off so that the garlic puts all of its efforts into forming a large bulb rather than flowering.  Now you don't toss the scape you get to enjoy it as a fantastic spring bonus green!  There is soooooo....... much you can do with this little gem - let me share a few of my favorites:

Saute with a little olive oil toss with fresh pasta, little more olive oil and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar

Saute in butter and add to scrambled eggs (yummmmm!!!! one of my favorite spring breakfast)

Chop and add to olive oil allow to set for week, strain - creates a mild garlic oil

And the piece de la resistance- Scape Pesto

1 cup Scapes

1/2 cup walnuts (or pine nuts)

1/2 cup asiago cheese (or parmesan)

salt

olive oil 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup

add all this to your food processor drizzling more olive oil till you get the consistence your looking for - Enjoy

This year I'm thinking about trying pickled scapes, scape hummus, grilled scapes the list is endless - I'll let you know how it comes out