Garlic Scapes!

I had heard of Garlic Scapes before. Mostly on NPR or in the New York Times as this random food item that shows up on fancy NYC restaurant menus and over which the Foodies go all Gaga. The thing is I had never seen them before. So when they showed up in The Box they elicited a lot of confusion. This is the item I had to bite into in order to determine what it was and, as a result, the cause of my indigestion in the morning.

After that not-so-pleasant experience and the formal determination of its genus, species and culinary classification, the next step was to determine how I was going to use them. Once again I took to The Google Machine which informed me they were good in salads and in other culinary applications where a less garlicky flavor might be required. After a half hour of research and some deep probing of my internal culinary desires, which included my desire NOT to slave over the stove in this god - forsaken heat,  I went with BFF Becky's suggestion: Pesto.

To start this task I broke out Tyler (the name for our Food Processor) and, being new to this whole "take pictures as you cook" part of blogging, I promptly forgot to take a picture of the Scapes before I chopped them into little pieces. So here are the Scapes after Tyler did his thing :

Now I think you should know in advance of the remainder of the blog that I am Italian, and, as an Italian, I do not measure when I make pesto. Pesto literally means paste. So when I make pesto I kinda just grind everything up until it looks/tastes right and then serve. However, since The Husband voiced concerns that blog readers may not like a food blog without recipes, I've tried my best to estimate amounts for you after the fact.

I got about 1 cup of ground Scapes out of the bunch we received in The Box. To that I added about 1/3 of a cup of walnuts and 1/2 a lemon and about a 1/4 cup of basil leaves from our PATHETIC basil plant.

Final steps included the addition of about a 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan, enough olive oil to get the desired thickness, and salt/pepper to taste.

For those of you wondering, "Dori II" is the name of my coffee pot. "Dori I" died tragically when I accidentally left her on all day my first day of college.

The Husband took one look at the Big Fat Tomato we had gotten in The Box and decided it was made for Fresh Mozzarella. So he stopped by the really expensive Italian Deli in town and picked up a pound. YUM! (Don't worry, we saved the bulbs).

The Husband was right. This big fat beauty was MADE for fresh cheese.

The End Result:

THE VERDICT:

Garlic Scape Pesto was - garlicky, although less then what you would expect from a pesto that in theory is all garlic. We served it over penne pasta and saved the remaining for another meal. Would I make it again? Probably, but really only if The Box provided the Scapes. I really don't think I would seek out this veg. I found it mildly underwhelming in comparison to the hype and have a feeling the hype results in them being more expensive than they are worth.

As for the tomato, I can only hope this tomato is proof of a trend in The Box. It was DELICIOUS.