My husband LOVES garlic. A lot. We use it almost daily in the household so we definitely had to plant it in our garden. Garlic is one of the easiest plants to grow, which was a bonus for me because my thumbs weren’t exactly green and our crop thrives yearly. I hadn’t originally known that the flower of the garlic plant could be eaten but I couldn’t help but want to taste them when I smelled the tops of the plant. That got me on the hunt for recipe ideas and pesto was my first-ever garlic scapes dish. At the time, my hubby talked about it for days and thought about eating it in between meals 😛
If you’re wanting other ways of enjoying this wonderful plant, you can fry them in butter, put them on the bbq or add them to pasta or salad dishes.
Although we love these made a variety of other ways (in particular, with mushrooms, butter, salt and pepper on the bbq and then over a steak) the pesto is the most popular in the house. You can use it over fresh pasta, for dips, on pizza, on breads and crackers or over top of veggies.
Mature scapes may be a bit more overpowering for some so, if you’re finding that you don’t really enjoy this dish, try getting your scapes earlier in the season before dismissing the idea entirely. Putting it in the freezer will mellow that flavour after a time too so, if you’re not a fan at first, a bit of time in the deep freeze may perfect your pesto.
If you’re not a fan of pine nuts, or find them a bit too expensive, you can substitute nearly any nut in this dish! It’s just as delicious with almonds, walnuts or cashews and we whip it up with whatever is on hand to use up ingredients.
What’s your favourite way to use pesto?
- ½ cup coarsely chopped garlic scapes
- 1 cup fresh basil leaves
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- ½ cup olive oil
- ¼ cup pine nuts, toasted golden brown
- ⅓ cup Parmesan cheese
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- In a food processor, process the garlic scapes, basil and lemon for 30 seconds.
- Add the nuts and cheese and process for another 30 seconds.
- Add in the salt and pepper to incorporated, as desired.
- Slowly drizzle in the olive oil as you continue to run the food processor, to desired consistency.
- Use the pesto in your fave dishes.
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thanks for this great idea and recipie! I have just planted my first crop of garlic this year and look forward to trying this! For an alternative to pesto I use sundried tomatoes, garlic, handful of almonds, 1 fresh tomato (for more juice) and olive oil. This makes a lovely rich paste in the bullet blender and goes over pasta right away 😀 a favourite for a last moment meal with Shawn and I.
Oh that sounds delicious as well! My husband loves roasted red peppers so now you have me contemplating all of the fun things I can make by varying a couple of ingredients.
I should have the first Echo Verde review up by midway through this week, at the latest. I wanted to put it up this morning, only the pictures taken for it did not turn out at all -_- Unfortunately, it was all the wrong angle and we have to go out to shoot a second time. It’s a shame I won’t be able to capture “golden hour” again though, due to Bryan’s work schedule this week.
Ah well! Ever learning.