Recently, my friend B texted me: "I've got a million dollar idea for you: A cooking blog that doesn't get into 7 paragraphs about your life before getting to the recipe."
Thus Garlic Is Love rises from the dirt like a spring daffodil.
It's a bit early, but here's a retool and repost of my garlic scape pesto recipe.
Garlic Scape Pesto
A garlic scape is the shoot of a garlic plant which is cut off in early spring so that the garlic bulb will grow better. It’s like if a head of garlic and an asparagus had a baby. It’s got a good garlic flavor balanced by a nice vegetal note and asparagus-y texture. The scape season is short, so snap them up as soon as you see them at the farmer's market or your own garden. Bonus: Cutting the scapes means bigger, better garlic heads (would you like to know why?).
6-10 garlic scapes
1 cup of olive oil (give or take)
salt and pepper, to taste
2 large handfuls of nuts
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (or more)
Cut the ends of the garlic scapes. Make sure to remove the flowering end to avoid bitterness. Roughly chop scapes into 2 inch pieces or so.
Add scapes, almonds, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt to food processor. Run processor until mixture is more or less uniform. While processor is running, drizzle in oil in a fine stream. Keep drizzling until the mixture starts to become more liquid and turns a lighter green in color. Stop the processor occasionally and check for thickness. Because the garlic scapes are tougher than, say, basil, this mixture will never be as smooth in texture as regular pesto. Add additional salt and pepper to taste. Fold in grated Parmesan. Keeps about a week in the coldest part of your refrigerator.
If freezing, don't add the cheese. Put into freezer-safe container, and add a little bit of oil to seal the top. After thawing, add the cheese just before serving. (Cheese doesn't do well being frozen).
