Garlic Scape Pesto with Spinach, Basil and Lemon

(pictured: garlic scapes)

(pictured:  Vegan Insalata Caprese)

(pictured:  Spiralized Veggies with Scape Pesto)

For those of you that are not familiar with garlic scapes (aka scapes) they are the green curly top on the young garlic. As the garlic grows the curly top with straighten, harden and lose its green color. When it is young it has both a soft texture and flavor.

Scapes can be used in any recipe you would typically add garlic too. I like them in scrambled tofu, added to cilantro rice, included in a veggie stir fry. The options are endless. However, my favorite way to use scapes is in pesto. You can add any flavors you choose to the pesto but this is one of my favorite variations:

Garlic Scape Pesto with Spinach, Basil and Lemon
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 cups baby spinach
¼ cup basil leaves
2 garlic scapes, flower buds removed and minced (they have an odd texture)
½ cup walnuts, soaked for 2 hours to soften
½ lemon, zested and juiced
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

Combine everything in your blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Add water or lemon juice if you think the texture is too thick. Add salt and pepper to taste, if desired. The scape pesto will keep in the refrigerator for a week if a tightly sealed container.

Nutritional Information:

Amount Per Serving
Calories - 120.14
Calories From Fat (68%) - 81.58

Total Fat - 9.76g
Saturated Fat - 0.91g
Cholesterol - 0mg
Sodium - 14.55mg
Potassium - 238.32mg
Total Carbohydrates-  7.62g
Fiber-  2.57g
Sugar - 0.76g
Protein - 3.6g

Comments:

Tonight we had the zucchini and radish pasta (which I spiralized) tossed with the scape pesto, red bell pepper and cucumbers. On the side we had my version of Insalata Caprese with fresh tomatoes, a little vegan mozzarella and a dollop of scape pesto. This was the perfect summer dinner if I say so myself, LOL.

For those of you that are curious Insalata Caprese translates to "salad in the style of the Isle of Capri". It is known in the US as Caprese salad. In Italy it is a simple salad of fresh tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, fresh basil and drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. It has been a favorite of mine for as long as I can remember though in the US it almost always has more olive oil than they use in Italy.

Unrelated Note:

Guess who didn’t make anything special for dinner again last night? Clearly I am not in the cooking mood this month. This usually happens a few times a year. I seem to have lost my cooking mojo. I do have a few things going on right now that have me busier than usual. However I hope to break this streak soon and come up with something fun for dinner tomorrow. We are expected temperatures in the upper 90’s so I will probably be making something cold and probably raw tomorrow.

The magazine project is going much more slowly than I expected. I found myself wanting to look through each one to see if there were any recipes I wanted to scan. If I keep this up I will still be working on this project at Christmas.  ;-) I decided to box up the magazines and work on a few each day until I have looked through them all.

Tomorrow morning we will be going to the farmers' market to pick our CSA shares and do a little shopping. I love going to the market and can't wait to see what is there that wasn't in last week.  It is a shame I love produce shopping as much as I do, LOL.  Talk to you all again tomorrow.