One of my favorite reasons to eat locally grown and produced foods is that you get to try things that aren’t available in a grocery store.  Garlic scapes are a perfect example.  Before I started shopping at farmers’ markets, I’d never even seen a garlic scape.  Little did I know that I missing out on something so delicious!

Available for only a few weeks early each summer, Sue Ventura of Dragonfly Farms explains, “a garlic scape is the flower stalk of a hardneck garlic.  We cut them off so the plant puts the energy into making a bigger clove.”

If you’ve never tried garlic scapes, they have a more mild garlic flavor than garlic cloves—it’s garlicky, without the sharp bite of raw garlic.  They’re delicious tossed with olive oil and salt and roasted in the oven or thrown on the grill in a grill basket, or chopped into egg dishes like frittatas or quiches.

One of the most popular ways to use garlic scapes is in pesto.  Since one of my sons has nut allergies, I’m sharing my take on a nut-free garlic scape pesto.  I like to add some mint to my garlic scape pesto.  While I don’t add so much that the pesto becomes minty, it adds a little depth to the pesto and is an interesting offset to the garlic flavor. 

Do you have mint growing in your herb garden?  Mint grows like a weed so it is a great choice for even inexperienced gardeners.  But if you don’t have your own mint growing and have to buy a whole bunch for this recipe, go ahead and plan on making some minted strawberries for dessert with your leftover mint. 

Like garlic scapes, local strawberries are only available for a limited time and will soon be gone until next year.

Garlic scape pesto freezes well, so you might want to make an extra batch or two. Scape season is so short; this is a good way to preserve them and continue eating locally grown food throughout the year. Plan to get to the farmer’s market early today before they sell out of garlic scapes!

Ingredients:

• 7 or 8 garlic scapes
• 1 packed tablespoon fresh parsley leaves
• 5 – 8 fresh mint leaves
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
• Your favorite pasta.  I especially like this over Westford Farmer’s Market vendor Fior D’Italia’s parsley and cheese gnocchi

Directions:

1. Using kitchen shears, cut the garlic scapes into approximately 2 inch pieces and place into a food processor.  Discard the very skinny tips of the scapes.
2. Add the parsley and mint leaves as well as the olive oil.
3. Process the scapes until well blended and smooth.  It won’t turn out perfectly smooth, but there shouldn’t be large chunks of scapes.
4. Pour the scape mixture into a bowl and stir in the grated parmesan cheese.  If the pesto seems dry, drizzle in an additional tablespoon or two of olive oil. 
5. Serve over the cooked pasta of your choice.  This pesto is thick—I find it matches well with gnocchi.

Programming note:  Cooking Local with Sally will now appear on Tuesdays.  Read the recipe, then head over to the Westford Farmer’s Market.  I’ll see you there!