We are LOVING our first summer being part of a CSA. A super awesome surprise box of beyond fresh veggies every week 🙂 What a great present to have! Before joining the CSA I had never had a garlic scape before. Garlic scapes are the beautiful bright green stems and unopened flower buds of garlic. I heard that if you place them in water, their flowers are beautiful!! (but then your house will also smell of garlic!). They have a mild-strong garlic flavor, depending, and can be used a variety of ways, often times just in place of garlic itself. You can find them early summer at farmer’s markets and they are quite the gem!
I decided to try making a pesto with them. I ended up adding a bunch of baby spinach to tame down the powerful garlic flavor, but in the end it was DEELISH! We used it to make pesto pasta, sautéed greens (from the CSA), as a condiment in wraps and even the babies Loved it as a dip with baby carrots. 
Garlic Scape Pesto
- 10 garlic scapes
- 2 handfuls baby spinach
- 1/3 cup pignoli nuts + some for garnish
- 1/3 cup finely grated parmigian (optional)
- sea salt and black pepper, to taste
- 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Puree everything together, scraping down the sides to incorporate everything. Season with salt and pepper to taste and garnish with pignoli nuts. Simple and delicious.
For Pasta – Just boil 1 lb of pasta and combine with Pesto.
For Sauteed Chicory – Boil Chicory for about 5 minutes to remove some of the bitterness and then saute with pesto. Amazing!! A CSA Fave!!!
For Baby Beet Greens – Chop up, saute the stems first till they soften a bit and then add the greens and mix with pesto. (enjoy the beets with this or on their own)
Marisa's Healthy Kitchen 