Garlic Scapes and Pesto

I just love the funny shapes garlic scapes make as they swirl around.  But, one of the best things is eating them. Although these actually used to be discarded by farmers, now everyone’s caught on to how good they are, and they are flooding farmer’s markets and CSAs everywhere right now.

The garlic scape is the flower of hardneck garlic varieties (softneck varieties do not produce a scape), and these appear around late may or june in our zone 6. In order for the garlic bulb to fully develop, you’ll need to cut the scape off, or pull it gently from the base. The entire scape is edible, although some parts are tougher than most. We’ve been throwing garlic scapes into everything over the past few weeks—-stir fries, omelettes, pasta sauces, salads, you name it. You can also make an amazing pesto with garlic scapes. Feel like making pesto?

Scape Pesto

20 or more garlic scapes

1 cup of parsley

1 cup walnuts

1/2 – 1 tsp sea salt

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/8 cup of Parmesan Cheese

Just put everything in a food processor and blend. Stores in a jar all week. Or, make a bunch of batches and freeze. Enjoy!

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