June 18, 2020 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Garlic Scapes!

Cooking With This Week's Box

Baby Arugula: Icebox Salad; Arugula and Nectarine Salad with Yogurt Dressing

Potato Onions or Green Scallions: Pea Vine Cream Cheese; Fresh Turnip Salad with Curry Vinaigrette; Icebox Salad

Garlic Scapes: Garlic Scape Beef Satay with Garlic Scape Peanut Sauce (see below); Grilled Naan with Garlic Scape Chutney (see below); Garlic Scape Herbed Cream Cheese

Red Oak Head Lettuce: Strawberry and Goat Cheese Fritter Salad with Poppyseed Dressing; Fresh Turnip Salad with Curry Vinaigrette; Icebox Salad

Rhubarb: Rhubarb Poppyseed Dressing; Rhubarb Yogurt Cake

Kohlrabi: Kohlrabi Custard; Kohlrabi Slaw with Cilantro, Jalapeno & Lime

Baby White Turnips: Fresh Turnip Salad with Curry Vinaigrette; Creamy Turnips Grits & Greens

Italian Parsley: Garlic Scape Herbed Cream Cheese; Swiss Chard and Mushroom Galette

Lacinato Kale: White Bean and Kale Quesadillas with Creamy BBQ Dip; Kale Feta Egg Bake

Pea Vine OR Baby Rainbow Chard: Pea Vine Cream Cheese; Swiss Chard and Mushroom Galette

Strawberries: Strawberry and Goat Cheese Fritter Salad with Poppyseed Dressing; Strawberry Basil Foccacia

Chef Andrea roasting A LOT of garlic in the HVF kitchen

This week I want to kick off the Cooking With the Box Article with a huge “Welcome!” to all of our Peak Season vegetable share members who are joining us for the first time this year!  If you’re totally new to HVF and are looking for ways to use all of the items in your CSA box each week, you’re in the right place!  My name is Andrea and I am both a farmer and a professionally trained chef who has worked in restaurants, but also understand what it means to balance making healthy meals at home along with all the other responsibilities life may send our way.  Each week I share ideas for ways you might use the vegetables in your box, including links to recipes.  Sometimes I link to websites and blogs, while other times I share a recipe from our archives.  The goal of this space is to inspire you to find ways to make meals you and your family enjoy while maximizing the use of the vegetables you receive each week!

Lets jump into this week’s box and take a look at the crazy, curly garlic scapes!  If you’re encountering these for the first time, take a minute to read this week’s vegetable feature information below.  I’ve included several more links to recipes and ideas for putting this unique vegetable to use.  I also have two recipes to share with you, perhaps one of these may spark your interest.  The first recipe we’re featuring this week is for Garlic Scape Beef Satay with Garlic Scape Peanut Sauce (see below).  You need to plan ahead to marinate the beef, but aside from that and preheating a grill, this recipe comes together very fast and it’s full of flavor!  In fact, Richard went back for another serving….peanut sauce is also one of his favorites.  The second recipe is for Grilled Naan with Garlic Scape Chutney (see below).  This recipe does involve making a dough, but it’s very easy and fun to make.

Kohlrabi Slaw with Cilantro, Jalapeno & Lime
Photo from feastingathome.com

Last week we featured kohlrabi, another very unique vegetable with an “out of this world” appearance.  Check out last week’s vegetable feature article to learn more about how to use this vegetable.  If you haven’t tried the Kohlrabi Custard recipe featured last week, consider trying it this week.  Several members in our Facebook Group tried it and gave it positive reviews!  In my journey through food blogs over the past week I came across this recipe for Kohlrabi Slaw with Cilantro, Jalapeno & Lime. This is a refreshing salad using lime and orange zest along with the juice to make a light, refreshing citrus dressing.

Speaking of salads, a member in our Facebook Group made a salad using Rhubarb Poppyseed Dressing which led me not only to a recipe for this dressing, but also this Strawberry and Goat Cheese Fritter Salad with Poppyseed Dressing.  Just substitute the Rhubarb Poppyseed dressing for the regular dressing in the recipe.  This is a perfect salad to make with the Red Oak lettuce in this week’s box!

Strawberry Basil Foccacia
Photo from howsweeteats.com

There’s been a lot of activity in our Facebook Group with some awesome pictures, recipes and dialogue!  Another member shared this recipe for Strawberry Basil Foccacia.  I never would have thought to use strawberries to make focaccia, but this looks delicious!  This recipe for Rhubarb Yogurt Cake was also recommended in the group and I think I’m going to have to give it a try as well!  Since it has yogurt in it maybe I can pass it off as “breakfast cake!”

This week some boxes will receive pea vine and others will receive Swiss chard.  If you get the pea vine, I invite you to join me in my obsession with Pea Vine Cream Cheese. This year’s obsession actually struck me this past Sunday and I made a double batch.  I added some fresh dill which was quite nice.  You could also add parsley, basil or cilantro if you like.  We’ve been using it on tortillas stuffed with chopped lettuce, radishes, turnips and kohlrabi.  Richard likes a little meat, so we added some cooked bacon bits as well.  My next cream cheese recipe to try is Garlic Scape Herbed Cream Cheese using the garlic scapes and Italian parsley in this week’s box.  Of course you could also use dill if you have that remaining from last week or really any other fresh herb you have access to.  Put it on your morning bagel, use it to make a wrap, or spread it on crackers for a little afternoon snack.

Swiss Chard and Mushroom Galette
Photo by Christina Holmes for bonappetit.com

If you receive the Swiss chard instead of the pea vine, check out this recipe for Swiss Chard and Mushroom Galette.  I love galettes because they are easy to make and I like the rustic feel of them.  This recipe calls for lots of fresh parsley along with the chard, mushrooms and fresh ricotta.  This is a good brunch item or would be good for dinner along with a salad such as this Arugula and Nectarine Salad with Yogurt Dressing.

This is our last week for the sweet little baby white turnips.   I highly recommend trying the recipe for Creamy Turnips Grits & Greens that was featured in last year’s newsletter.  Even if you aren’t a hot sauce person, make the hot sauce vinaigrette that you drizzle on just before serving.  It’s so delicious!  If you want to go with a raw concept, check out this recipe for Fresh Turnip Salad with Curry Vinaigrette.  This recipe was created by Chef Boni who worked at the farm one summer.   There’s one more salad recipe I wanted to share here this week.  Actually a member shared this recipe for Icebox Salad in the Facebook Group last week.  Growing up back in Indiana we had a less healthy version of this type of salad called “7-Layer Salad” that was a frequent flyer at church potlucks.  All we had in Indiana was shipped in iceberg lettuce, so I trust that this recipe will be much better than anything I’ve ever had from the past!  If you don’t have the radishes, sugar snap peas and cucumbers the recipe calls for, substitute chunks of kohlrabi and diced baby white turnips instead.  This recipe calls for romaine lettuce as the base.  You can use the red oak or any other head lettuce you have.  In fact, you could also mix in some of the baby arugula.  Basically, use the recipe as the base and make it work for what you have in your refrigerator!

Smashed White Bean and Kale Quesadillas
with Creamy BBQ Dip
Photo from runningtothekitchen.com

We’re getting close to the bottom of the box, and I just realized I almost missed the lacinato kale!  This is my favorite kind of kale, which is part of why it’s the first kale we’re sending your way this year.  Actually the entire kale and collard field looks beautiful right now.  Last year a member shared this recipe for Smashed White Bean and Kale Quesadillas with Creamy BBQ Dip.  Quesadillas are one of those versatile things to make using whatever vegetables are in season.  On this same blog there is a simple recipe for Kale Feta Egg Bake that you can make in individual ramekins.  If you prep the kale portion of the recipe in advance, you can bake the egg into the dish in only 12-15 minutes.  Perfect for a vegetable-centric breakfast with little time commitment!

Ok, I think that’s a wrap for this week.  Have a great week and remember, have fun cooking and never be intimidated by a vegetable!---Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Garlic Scapes

By Chef Andrea

This week we’re featuring one of the craziest, curliest vegetables we grow…Garlic Scapes!  One thing I absolutely love about vegetables is how unique they can be, and garlic scapes are definitely unique.  So lets start with the basics like “What the heck is a garlic scape?!”  There are two main types of garlic—softneck and hardneck.  We grow hardneck garlic and the way this type propagates itself in nature is by producing this scape which grows up from the center of the garlic plant.  It starts out straight, but the more it emerges it starts to form a curl.  You’ll notice a little bulb that is lighter in color at the tapered end of the scape.  This is actually called a bulbil.  If you want to do something fun, cut it open and see what it looks like on the inside.  If our garlic were growing wild in nature, these bulbils would drop down to the ground and plant themselves thereby propagating a new plant.  We’re cultivating garlic, so we plant a clove of garlic from a full sized bulb and use that as a means of growing the plant.  Since we don’t need the scape to produce another crop, we go through the field and cut them off the plant so the plant can focus its energy into producing a nice sized bulb instead of a scape.  We used to throw them on the ground, but after a market customer asked us to save some for her so she could make garlic scape pickles, we realized we were losing something valuable!  Many years ago we did an experiment and planted the bubils.  The first year they formed a single ball of garlic.  We planted that and the next year we actually got bulbs with divided cloves of garlic!

Garlic Scape Herbed Cream Cheese
Photo from farmfreshfeasts.com

Ok, so what do you do with this crazy vegetable?  Well the basic answer is “Use chopped garlic scapes anywhere you would use a clove of garlic.”  Yes, you can do that, but you can also do so many other fun things with them.  The flavor of garlic scapes is very mild in comparison to green garlic or a clove of garlic.  They are very tender, so you don’t need to peel them.  You might see a milky, white residue on the scapes which is garlic juice the plant exudes when the scape is cut.  Just give them a quick washing and they’re ready to use.  Sometimes the tapered end can get a little tough, so you might want to cut that part beyond the bulbil off.  You should keep them in the refrigerator, although if you want to put the cut end in a vase or glass of water and enjoy their beauty as a centerpiece at room temperature for a day or two until you’re ready to use them, they’ll do just fine.

There are some basic go-to ways to use garlic scapes and if you’re not sure where to start, start with one of these ideas.  Pesto—you just can’t go wrong with making garlic scape pesto.  There are many different versions you can make, so take your pick and dive in.  Check out FarmFreshFeasts.com where you’ll find 28 Recipes Using Garlic Scapes, including NINE different links to recipes for versions of garlic scape pesto!

Pickled Garlic Scapes

Pickled Garlic Scapes is another popular way to use and preserve scapes.  You’ll find a simple recipe for these in our recipe archives on our website.  You can keep a jar of these in the refrigerator for up to 8 months and use them as a condiment with tacos or anywhere you need a pungent, tangy pickle to brighten up a meal.  Using garlic scapes in dressings and dips is another easy way to capture their flavor, such as a creamy Yogurt Garlic Scape Dressing that you can drizzle over a lettuce salad or use to make a creamy kohlrabi slaw.  Garlic Scape Herbed Cream Cheese is another delicious way to use this vegetable along with any herb you have, be it dill, cilantro, parsley, basil, etc.  Put it on your morning bagel, use it to make a wrap, or spread it on crackers for a little afternoon snack.

Garlic Scape Green Gazpacho
Photo from veggieobsession.com

I pushed myself to research a little further to see what else I could find and stumbled on a couple more ideas.  Check out this article entitled “Recipes That Make the Most of Garlic Scapes” at HuffPost.com.  The author includes links to 20 interesting recipes for garlic scapes including the two recipes we’re featuring this week!  There are some other good ones highlighted in this article such as Bacon Wrapped Garlic Scapes and Garlic Scape Green Gazpacho.  I also want to mention that you can also use garlic scapes as an actual vegetable as opposed to just a seasoning.  Garlic scapes are delicious tossed or brushed with oil and grilled or roasted, then served with a little sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon.  I also like to cut them into bite sized pieces and cook them any way you would cook a green bean or asparagus.  They also make a flavorful base for a creamy pureed soup and are a nice addition to pasta sauce.

Ok, I’ve done my best to convey to you how awesome and versatile this vegetable can be!  We’ll only have them for a few weeks so have fun and if you can’t eat them all right now, make an extra batch of pesto and freeze it or make a jar of garlic scape pickles so you can enjoy this fresh, delicious garlic flavor in the deep of winter!

Garlic Scape Beef Satay with Garlic Scape Satay Sauce

Yield:  6 skewers

Skewers:

16-20 ounces tender cut of beef, cut into evenly sized 1-1 ½ inch cubes (eg, tenderloin, Sirloin or Sirloin Tip) 

3 garlic scapes

½ inch piece fresh ginger, peeled

1 lime, juiced

½ cup chopped cilantro leaves and stems

10 mint leaves 

3 Thai basil or basil leaves (optional)

¼ cup soy sauce

3 Tbsp sesame oil

1. Cut the scapes into smaller pieces and roughly chop the ginger.  Put both in a blender or food processor and coarsely chop.  Add the lime juice, cilantro, mint and basil leaves and the soy sauce.  Blend until a paste forms.  Scrape down the sides of the blender.  With the blender running, drizzle in the sesame oil and blend until smooth.  Pour the marinade into a zipper plastic bag or a glass container and add the beef cubes.  Mix the marinade and the beef well.  Refrigerate for several hours or overnight.
2. When ready to cook, heat the grill or a grill pan to high heat.  Thread the beef onto skewer sticks.  Grill the skewers until the beef is cooked to desired doneness.  Serve with the Garlic Scape Satay Sauce.

Garlic Scape Satay Sauce:

2 garlic scapes

¾ cup creamy peanut butter

¼ cup coconut milk or cream

1-2 Tbsp water

1 ½ Tbsp fresh lime juice

1 ½ Tbsp soy sauce

1 ½ tsp Tbsp fish sauce

1-2 tsp Hot sauce or chili garlic sauce, to taste

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp honey

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

¼ cup fresh chopped cilantro

1. Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2. Cut the scapes into small pieces and place in a blender.  Add the remaining ingredients and blend until smooth.  Adjust the consistency of the sauce by adding more water to thin it if necessary.  Adjust seasoning with additional salt, pepper, lime juice, etc.  Serve at room temperature with garlic scape beef satay skewers.

Recipe adapted from www.Food52.com.

Grilled Naan with Garlic Scape Chutney

photo from feastingathome.com

Yield:  10 pieces

Dough:

5 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more as needed

3 tsp baking powder

1 Tbsp kosher salt

1 tsp sugar

½ cup plain yogurt

1 large egg

¼ cup olive oil and more for brushing

1 ½ cup water

Garlic Scape Chutney: 

¾ cup chopped garlic scapes

½ cup fresh mint, packed

½ cup roasted almonds

½ tsp kosher salt

½ tsp black pepper

½ jalapeño pepper (optional if you want a little kick)

1 Tbsp lime juice 

⅓ cup olive oil

1 cup melty cheese, such as mozzarella or queso fresco (optional) 

Olive oil or Melted butter for brushing

1. Make the dough: Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook.  In a medium bowl, whisk the yogurt, egg and 1 ½ cups of lukewarm water and the oil.  Pour the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture and mix on low speed until a soft, sticky dough starts to clump around the hook, about 5 minutes.  If the dough seems too wet, add more flour, 1 tsp at a time. (Note, if you do not have a stand mixer, just mix by hand.)
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment and dust lightly with flour.  Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 10 equal pieces.  Form each piece into a ball and arrange them on the baking sheet.  Lightly brush the dough with oil, cover with plastic, and let sit 1 hour before shaping.
3. Make the chutney: Place all the chutney ingredients (garlic scapes through ⅓ cup olive oil) in a food processor and pulse until uniformly granular.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll a dough ball into a 5-inch circle.  Spread 1 Tbsp of the chutney in the center, leaving a ½-inch border.  Sprinkle 1 Tbsp of cheese over the chutney.  Gather the borders to form a pouch pinching it to seal in the filling.  Turn the pouch pinched side down and, using very light pressure, roll it into a 6-inch circle.  Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet.  Layer rolled out naan with parchment until ready to grill.
5. Prepare a medium charcoal or gas grill fire and wipe grates with a lightly oiled paper towel.  Grill the breads in batches pinched side down, covered, until they puff up and the undersides brown lightly in places, 2 to 3 minutes.  Turn over and cook the other side, covered, until grill marks form and the breads are cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes.  Just before taking them off the grill, turn the breads pinched side down and brush lightly with butter or olive oil.  Serve warm.
6. These are best, right off the grill but leftovers can be refrigerated and saved for another time.  Just place them in a toaster or warm oven before serving.

Recipe sourced from www.feastingathome.com

June 14, 2018 - This Week's Box Contents, Featuring Garlic Scapes

Cooking With This Week’s Box: 

This Week’s Summary of Recipes & The Vegetables They Utilize:

Purple Scallions:  White Turnip Salad with Miso Ginger Vinaigrette; Spicy Ginger Pork Noodles with Bok Choi

French Breakfast Radishes:  Dal with Radish Raita

Head Lettuce:  Boston Lettuce Avocado Salad with Lime Dressing

Cilantro:  Thai Coconut Soup with Spinach and Garlic Scapes (See Below)

Garlic Scapes:  Thai Coconut Soup with Spinach and Garlic Scapes (See Below); Garlic Scape herb spread (See Below); Spicy Ginger Pork Noodles with Bok Choi

Spinach:  Thai Coconut Soup with Spinach and Garlic Scapes (See Below); Dal with Radish Raita

Baby Arugula or Saute Mix:  Grilled Chicken with Arugula & Warm Chickpeas; Greens & Grains Breakfast Scramble

Baby White Turnips:  White Turnip Salad with Miso Ginger Vinaigrette

Hon Tsai Tai OR Bok Choi:  Spicy Ginger Pork Noodles with Bok Choi

Zucchini:  Summer Squash with Basil Butter

Strawberries:  Strawberry Rhubarb Gin Rickey;  Strawberry Poppy Seed Vinaigrette; Strawberry Balsamic Grilled Cheese

This week I’d like to start off by welcoming the Peak Season CSA Vegetable Share members!  And just in time for the peak season...strawberries!  We’re really excited to be kicking off strawberry season this week and want to remind you that this weekend is our annual Strawberry Day event at the farm.  The strawberry ice cream is scheduled to arrive on Thursday and Richard’s planning the tour route.  We hope you’ll plan on joining us!

This is a busy week, so I’m really looking for quick, easy dishes to prepare.  That’s how this Thai Coconut Soup with Spinach & Garlic Scapes (see below) evolved.  I haven’t made cream of spinach soup…well, ever.  For some reason it sounded good to me this week, but I didn’t have extra cream and I wanted to avoid that overcooked spinach flavor.  I ended up going with a Thai coconut soup concept, but I blended fresh, raw garlic scapes and spinach into the flavorful coconut milk broth.  This soup is easy and fast to make as well as being flavorful and filling.  Garnish it with scallion greens and some of the fresh cilantro in this week’s box and your set. 

Spicy Ginger Pork Noodles with Bok Choi

Several years ago we featured a recipe for Spicy Ginger Pork Noodles with Bok Choi.  This is the perfect week to make this recipe using hon tsai tai which is an acceptable substitute for the bok choi.  You’ll make use of some of the garlic scapes, scallions and cilantro in this recipe.  This will make a simple dinner and leftovers are equally as good! 

Another blast from the past recipe that crossed my mind this week was my White Turnip Salad with Miso Ginger Vinaigrette.  This is a refreshing, light salad that rounds out a simple meal when served with a piece of grilled salmon or chicken.  This salad makes use of both the greens and the turnips and is garnished with almonds for a little extra crunch.

This is definitely a week to enjoy salads and here is a recipe that was made for this week’s box contents.  This Boston Lettuce Avocado Salad with Lime Dressing will make good use of the head lettuce in this week’s box along with the avocadoes and limes from the fruit box!  It also includes cilantro…which just happens to be in this week’s vegetable box as well!  This salad will make a nice light lunch along with some crackers and sliced French Breakfast Radishes. 

Strawberry Rhubarb Gin Ricky
Photo from Family Style Food

So what are you going to do with the delicious strawberries in this week’s box, and the next few weeks to come?  Well, this week I’d recommend using some of them to make a Strawberry Poppy Seed Vinaigrette.  This light, sweet dressing will go very nicely on a salad made with either red oak or Boston lettuce.  Garnish your salad with some crumbled feta and maybe a few croutons.  This would actually be a nice salad to eat with a sandwich, so perhaps you’ll try this recipe for a Strawberry Balsamic Grilled Cheese!  Strawberry season doesn’t last long, so you’ll want to eat them while you can!  I never considered putting fresh strawberries on a sandwich, but this sounds delicious.  The cheese this recipe calls for is similar to medium to sharp cheddar.  I think this would be delicious with gouda or a smoked cheddar as well.  While we’re talking strawberries, I want to share this cocktail with you as well.  If you have any rhubarb left from last week’s box, consider pairing it with some of the strawberries this week to make Strawberry Rhubarb Gin Rickey cocktails to celebrate Father’s Day!

Some boxes this week will include baby arugula and others will have saute mix.  If you receive the baby arugula, consider this recipe for Grilled Chicken with Arugula & Warm Chickpeas which will make a delicious, simple dinner.  Eat it on the patio with some good crusty bread slathered with Garlic Scape Herb Butter (See below).

If you are looking for another way to put this week’s radishes to use, consider making this Dal recipe with Radish Raita.  The radishes add a little zing to the yogurt which is served as a condiment for the dal.  This recipe also calls for a generous portion of cooking greens.  This is your opportunity to utilize any greens that may be lurking in your refrigerator.  Radish or turnip tops, spinach or saute mix, or hon tsai tai would all be appropriate to include in this dish. 

Greens & Grains Breakfast Scramble, Photo from epicurios

Well, we’ve almost reached the bottom of another CSA box.  We’ve covered lunch and dinners for the week with quite a few dishes ranging from noodles to grilled cheese to soup.  Lets not forget to eat well for breakfast too.  If you receive saute mix in your box this week instead of arugula, use it to make this simple Greens & Grains Breakfast Scramble.  The other delicious, simple vegetable dish I’ve enjoyed for breakfast this week is this recipe for Summer Squash with Basil Butter.  Use the zucchini in this week’s box along with basil from your own herb garden!  This makes a great vegetable to serve for brunch with eggs, bacon and toast.  If you have any left, turn it into a breakfast quesadilla the next day with some Monterey Jack to hold the quesadilla filling together.

Before I close out this week’s Cooking With The Box article, I just want to invite any new peak season members to join our Facebook Group.  This is a great forum to converse with other CSA members, share your recipes, ask questions and create a great connection with others in this HVF community of eaters.  Have a great week and we look forward to seeing you at Strawberry Day!—Chef Andrea

Vegetable Feature: Garlic Scapes 

Garlic scape emerging from the hardneck garlic plant.

Garlic is a staple item in our kitchens, but bulbs of garlic to use in the form of cloves are hard to come by this time of the season.  It’s too early for fresh bulbs of garlic and if you have any garlic remaining from last fall, it is likely sprouting by now.  Even with a staple ingredient like garlic, we can continue to eat seasonally and locally when we are willing to consider garlic in its other forms.  For the past several weeks we’ve enjoyed green garlic.  Green garlic is best when it’s young and tender, but as it continues to grow the base starts to become a bulb and the layers of the plant become tough and less than desirable to eat. That’s just the way the garlic grows.  Just as we outgrow green garlic, garlic scapes start to form and we take the next step in our seasonal garlic journey.

Garlic scapes are the long, skinny, green vegetable with a lot of curl that you’ll find in this

week’s box.  Up until the early 90’s we used to remove scapes from the garlic plant and throw them on the ground!  What were we thinking?!  We were the first farm in the Midwest to start harvesting the scapes for use as a vegetable, thanks to one of our customers from Korea who asked us to save the garlic scapes for her so she could make pickles.  We thought this was odd (remember we used to throw them on the ground), but saved some for her anyway. She was gracious enough to share a jar of pickled scapes with us and that was our introduction to how delicious they are to eat!

Pickled Garlic Scapes

Garlic scapes are a curly shoot that forms on a hardneck garlic plant and grows up from the center of the plant in June.  All of our varieties of garlic are hardneck garlic.  This type of garlic produces scapes as part of nature’s plan for the plant to propagate itself in the soil.  Right now we want the garlic plant to focus its energy into producing a nice bulb of garlic, so we remove the scape from the plant.  Nearly the entire scape is edible and is best when harvested young and tender.  You may need to trim off the skinny end near the little bulb as it is tough sometimes.  Garlic scapes are very tender and do not need to be peeled…Easy!  Scapes have a bright, mild garlic flavor.  They can be used in any recipe that calls for garlic cloves, just chop them up and add them as you would clove garlic.  They can be grilled or roasted, pickled, fermented, and make an awesome pesto such as this  Cilantro & Garlic Scape Pesto recipe Dani Lind from Rooted Spoon Culinary shared with us back in 2015.  Check out our recipe archive for other delicious recipes utilizing garlic scapes including Pickled Garlic Scapes and Tempura Garlic Scapes.  Store your scapes in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use them.  They’ll store for 2-3 weeks.  

Thai Coconut Soup with Spinach & Garlic Scapes 

By Chef Andrea

Yield:  2 quarts 

4 cups chicken stock
1 can coconut milk (15-16 oz can)
2 Tbsp fresh ginger, minced
2 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp maple syrup
¼ tsp red chili flakes
½ tsp salt, plus more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
2 Tbsp lime juice
8 oz baby spinach
3-4 garlic scapes, cut into 1 inch pieces
Zest of one lime
Cilantro, chopped, to garnish

1. Put the chicken stock and coconut milk in a medium sized sauce pan along with the minced ginger, fish sauce, soy sauce, maple syrup, chili flakes, ½ tsp salt and black pepper.  Bring the liquid to a simmer over medium to medium high heat.  Simmer for about 10 minutes, uncovered, to infuse the flavors.  
2. After 10 minutes, remove the coconut milk mixture from heat.  The next step is to puree the soup in a blender.  If you have a large blender container, you may be able to puree the whole batch of soup at one time.  Otherwise you may need to blend the soup in two batches.  First put about half of the spinach and the garlic scapes into the blender.  Pour the hot coconut milk mixture over the spinach and add the lime juice.  Secure the lid on the container and turn the blender on, starting on low speed and gradually increasing.  If you are blending everything in one batch, stop, remove the lid and add the remainder of the spinach.  If blending in two batches, blend the first batch until the spinach is chopped finely, but there is still a little texture to the mixture.  Pour the soup into a bowl and then repeat the process with the remaining spinach.
     
3. Once the soup is blended, stir in the lime zest and taste it.  Adjust the seasoning to your liking with more salt, pepper and lime juice as needed.
   
4. Serve the soup hot with chopped cilantro as a garnish.

Garlic Scape Herb Butter 

Photo from Dishing up the Dirt

Yield:  1 cup butter

1 cup (2 sticks) good-quality unsalted butter, softened

1 garlic scape, minced

2 ½ Tbsp minced parsley

2 ½ Tbsp minced dill

½ tsp fresh lemon juice

¼ tsp sea salt

1. Using a hand mixer or a small food processor, beat together the softened butter, garlic scape, herbs, lemon juice, and salt until well combined.  Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

This super-simple recipe was borrowed from Andrea Bemis’s book, Dishing Up the Dirt.  She serves this butter as a spread for a fresh vegetable platter.  This spread would be delicious on a radish sandwich, spread it on toast, use it for your morning eggs, or use it to cook other vegetable in such as sautéed spinach or sautéed baby white turnips with their greens.