Pesto Pasta with Sausage and Garlic Scapes

A brief post...my new goal is to post more often by posting more briefly.
My husband made arugula pesto the other day. He made a very basic pesto with just the greens, garlic, and oil. He used no nuts and no cheese. Nonetheless quite a delicious topping!

We mixed it with pasta and roasted red peppers and topped it with some grilled sausage and grilled garlic scapes.
The sausage was a local Bratwurst. Delicious! And the garlic scapes were also local. I trip each end, spray them with oil and we grill them in a pan designed to be used on the grill, otherwise they'd fall through the grill.
It was a nice summer grilling combination!

Burgers, baby bok choy, and cupcakes!

Grilling in the rain! We had burgers on the grill made from tasty local beef mixed with whatever herbs and spices my husband mixed in. Topped with baby greens and Cambozola, the burgers were perfect. We also tried grilling garlic scapes. My husband thought they were okay but I wasn't really a fan. I much preferred using the garlic scapes in pesto!

I cooked the baby bok choy

we got in our farm share for our side dish. In 1T vegetable oil and a few drops of sesame oil, I let 1t garlic, 1 inch of grated ginger, and 1 sliced shallot cook 'til they were fragrant. Then I tossed in the bok choy and turned the greens 'til they were coated in the garlic, ginger, and shallots. The leaves wilted quickly and then I added some water and covered the pan to let the stems steam for about 3 minutes.

Oh, and don't forget dessert!

I made chocolate cupcakes starting with a recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I only used 6 oz of chocolate and it worked out just fine. I added strawberry puree (leftover from Sunday and the crepe adventure) as a middle layer as I spooned the batter in the pan.

It probably would have been better to just mix the puree into all the batter as the layer just bubbled up and out making a little bit of a mess. Finally, my husband said he couldn't stand to see such naked cupcakes so he had to make frosting!

We didn't have a full 8 0z of cream cheese so he used what we had, butter, powdered sugar, and maple syrup and mixed it up for the frosting. This cupcake recipe is great and would work well with many additions like berries, nuts, chips, etc. Yum!

Garlic Scape Pesto

After discovering that garlic scapes exist, I started searching for various pesto recipes. I didn’t pick one, I just took the general ingredients and ratios and went to town. I started by slicing the 7 garlic scapes from the farm share into 3 inch pieces. 

Then I put the scapes, 1/4C parmesan cheese, and 5T of olive oil in the food processor and mixed. Whoa! Those “mild” garlic scapes are garlicky! So I discovered the trick with this type of pesto is that the greens and the garlic are all in one so it is the other ingredients that have to mediate those flavors.

(I also discovered that it is hard to keep track of my usual method of cooking. I found myself having to make little tic marks on a notecard while I was adding ingredients and then I tallied them up at the end.)

In a food processor mix:

7 garlic scapes

1/2C parmesan cheese

3/4C walnuts

1/2C olive oil

2T lemon juice

1/4C water

 

After the fact, I noticed that at least one recipe suggests mixing the cheese in after rather than processing it. I think this is true of other pesto recipes too. It isn’t what I did, but I think it is a better idea! Let me know if you try it. 

I ate this with pasta and cherry tomatoes, which was tasty. A couple of people who sampled it last night suggested it would be a really good spread for bread or crackers. (I know the picture isn't really appealing, but I wanted to show you that it turns out to be a really light shade of green.)

We had a salad on the side using that beautiful head of lettuce that is now my profile picture. Along with that tasty lettuce, I tossed in carrots, cucumber, those fresh snap peas I picked on Wednesday, scallions, and green peppers. I also added garbanzo beans, which is a salad fave for us. Our grocery store sells 7.5oz. cans, which is the perfect amount for a salad! 

(Note in the picture the beautiful salad hands that my hubby made!)

First Farm Share of the Season!

My husband and I bought a farm share for the season this year. We started with one over the winter that was great, but boy oh boy did it push our creativity to the limits with root veggies! There are three farms involved in the collective. Over the winter we had the share delivered, but I'll be picking up the share all summer. Yesterday was my first visit to the farm and it was so much fun! 

I walked in with my bags to fill up and was walked through the process by one of the organizers. There is a chalkboard listing what items are available and which ones are limited so that each member can get their share. I got a few potatoes from last season, beautiful red radishes, and a few white Hakurei turnips. Then I gathered up some beautiful spring greens, purple kale, collards, and the cutest head of lettuce (see my profile pic!). I also picked up 7 (that was the limit) garlic scapes (see pic in orange colander). I had to do a Google search on these! 

 The most common recipe was for garlic scape pesto so I think I'll try that out tonight and let you know how it goes. I guess the scapes are the growth from hard stem garlic heads and are usually trimmed to encourage further growth in the bulb. 

After filling up my bag with these items, I went out to the fields to pick some of my own food. Each member was allowed to pick up to 1 qt. of strawberries (see pic at the bottom of the blog) and 1 pint of snap peas. I also gathered a few herbs: chives, thyme, and sage.