Garlic Scape Pesto

 If you walk into the farmers market right now, you will see garlic scapes at almost every booth! They are the shoots that shoot up from hardneck garlic. It takes nine months for garlic to mature in the garden, and the scapes are a flavorful bonus as you are waiting for your garlic head to finally be ready.

The first time I heard of garlic scape pesto was when my friend, Aubrey, from Heart and Soul Farm brought me a jar and told me that I needed to find a way to grow garlic scapes. We tried it and were hooked on it's punchy garlic flavor, and immediately ordered a package of three organic hardneck garlic heads to be planted in the fall.

Nine months later, we had a few plants with scapes. We shared some with the Dietrichs, saved the garlic heads, and replanted everything again in the fall. Now we are harvesting that patch this summer and we are so excited to be able to bring garlic scapes to market and provide them for our CSA members!

                                                   

Ingredients-

3 garlic scapes, roughly chopped

1/4 c walnuts (you can also use pine nuts if you are feeling fancy)

1/4 c parmesan cheese (we always add "a little" extra)

1/2 lemon zested and juiced

1 t salt

1/2 t pepper

3/4 c olive oil (we like to be able to drizzle ours, if you want a thicker pesto, you can reduce the oil to 1/2 c or even 1/4 c)

Put the scapes in a food processor and pulse 10-12 times. Add the walnuts and pulse 10-12 times. Add the parmesan, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Pulse 10-12 times. Turn the food processor on low and slowly drizzle in the olive oil until everything is fully combined.

The final product!

Store in a jar with a lid for up to 1 month in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer (don't forget to use a freezer safe jar!) We love to eat this with any kind of bread or with pasta. Below you can see that we made breakfast sandwiches with homemade biscuits, scrambled eggs, arugula, and garlic scape pesto. Hope you enjoy!