Garlic Scape Pesto

When I pulled these little green pipes out of my CSA bag a couple weeks back, I honestly wasn’t quite sure what they were. Luckily, the lovely co-worker and pal sitting next to me used to farm and was not only able to tell me what they were (garlic scapes!), but had all sorts of ideas of what I could do with them.  After a bit of browsing, I decided on a walnut-based garlic scape pesto.

This pesto is incredibly versatile!  We enjoyed it spread over smoked lamb as well as on a coconut flour crust pizza with beets, walnuts, basil, grilled chicken and parmesan.

You could also serve it on grilled bread as a simple but delicious appetizer or toss it with pasta, spaghetti squash or zucchini noodles.  Just don’t plan to kiss anyone afterwards… or if you do, make sure it’s someone who also has recently enjoyed as much garlic scape pesto as you have!

Garlic Scape Pesto

 Ingredients:

• 1 cup garlic scapes, roughly chopped
• 1/3 cup walnuts
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 3 tbsp nutritional yeast (can substitute parmesan cheese, or omit entirely)
• Salt & pepper, to taste

How-to: Trim the scapes just below the bulb. Discard the bulb and roughly chop the scapes. In a food processor, add the scapes, walnuts, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Process while slowly adding the olive oil. Continue to process until fully blended, about 60-90 seconds, scraping the bowl as needed. Store in a jar in the fridge or freeze in an ice cube tray!

Johanna