After years of hearing customers at the markets rave about Garlic Scape Pesto, we finally made some and it totally lived up to all the hype! Even Joel, who is famously anti-pesto wanted seconds.
Garlic Scapes are the flowers of the garlic plants, they start growing in an upwards direction but quickly take a nose dive then back up and back down until someone notices them . Once the scapes start making their loopyloops we start walking up and down each of the garlic rows pulling them out. One, because we want to eat them. But mostly because we want to trick the garlic bulb into growing more. We planted over 110 pounds of garlic last fall, so needless to say we have A LOT of scapes.
I found a recipe from motherearthnews.com and adapted it to fit the ingredients we had available. Here is what they called for:
- 1 Bunch of Garlic Scapes (10-12 roughly chopped)
- 1/2 Bag of Pea Tendrils (3 ozs)
- 1 Bunch of Basil
- 1/2 Cup of Olive Oil
- 1/2 Cup Walnuts
- 1/2 Cup Parmesan
We didn’t have any other nuts besides peanut butter and cheese besides cheddar so I went for it and was not disappointed. I also added juice from half a lemon. Throw all those ingredients in a food processor or immersion blender and voila!
To make it vegan, use nutritional yeast. And to make it nut-free use sunflower seeds/butter.
So far I have enjoyed the Pesto on pasta, scrambled eggs, crackers, salad and toast! So, basically everything I’ve eaten since I made it last night.