Garlic Scape and Basil Pesto

One of the many awesome things about Cleveland is the program that I will lovingly refer to as City Fresh. Every Tuesday we head over to the City Fresh stand with our empty grocery bag and pick up a bountiful bevy of beautiful b(v)egetables (sorry, I really wanted to use an alliteration). The majority of the produce is stuff we’re comfortable using in recipes (eggplant, cucumbers, lettuce, apples, etc…), but every once in a while we get an item that we’ve never seen before. The garlic scape is perfect example of one of these vegetables. While it looks like something you should be afraid of, it tastes like a combination of garlic and green onions…basically, it’s delicious.

When we first saw this awkward looking vegetable in our bag, we weren’t entirely sure what we were going to do with it. After a very helpful suggestion from our friend Sarah, however, we decided to make a pesto! Here’s how we did it…

What you need:
Cuisinart/blender/magic bullet/some kind of chopping machine
11-13 garlic scapes
1/2 cup tightly packed basil
2-2 1/2 cups of parmesan cheese
1/2 cup walnuts or pine nuts
1/2 cup olive oil
salt to taste
crushed red pepper (if you like it hot)
1 lb of farfalle (bowtie) pasta

Side note: Pesto is one of those things you can take a lot of liberty with. If you love cheese, add more cheese. If you love basil, add some more of that! Same goes for walnuts, scapes, etc.

What you need to do:
1. Cut the garlic scape just below the seed pod, and throw away the top part.
2. Roughly cut the garlic scapes so they fit easily into the cuinsinart.
3. Blend.
4. Add some of the olive oil to make the blending process a little easier.
5. Add the basil, parmesan and remaining oil.
6. Blend (If the paste seems a little too…well…pasty, you can add more olive oil to loosen it up).
7. Add salt and crushed red pepper to taste, and set pesto aside.
8. Boil pot with water (don’t forget to add salt!) and cook 1 lb of bowtie pasta according to instructions on packet.
9. Add pesto to pasta and enjoy!