I finally got around to using the garlic scapes up today. They have been stored in the bottom of the fridge for several weeks. In fact, I have actually harvested the garlic and am curing it in the basement. Times have been busy!
Garlic scapes are those curly green almost flowers that appear on the top of your hard neck garlic in the spring. After they make a full turn I run out with kitchen scissors and cut them off. If you don’t have time to process like I didn’t, no worries, you can just put them in the fridge and process later.
This year I did three things with my scapes. I made pesto, scape salt and dried powdered scapes. Now because life has been fast and furious I didn’t take a lot of photos. I may add photos of the finished product in one of the diary posts.
Garlic Scape Powder:
Wash, dry and finely chop the scapes. I used my Ninja for this. Dump contents on to a lined cookie sheet and dry in the oven at the lowest temperature (mine is 170F) or put on a dehydrator tray with liner at 135F. I dry until the scapes are very dry. Let cool and then pulverize in blender or Ninja until powdered. I save in a sealed mason jar and add a food safe silica packet (you can save the ones from vitamins and reactivate them (dry them back out) in your dehydrator).
Garlic Scape Salt:
For this recipe I washed about 12 scapes and dried them for a few hours making sure they were completely dry. I then roughly chopped them up and added them to my Ninja with a 1/2 cup of smoked coarse salt. I then blended until the mix was mostly chopped but still a bit chunky. To dry you can put them in the oven at 170F or in the dehydrator at 135F for as long as it takes to get the mix very dry. I run this through the Ninja again until it is powdered and if if it damp at all I will return it to the dehydrator. To store I add a food safe silica packet to a canning jar with a tight lid.
Garlic Scape Pesto:
1 pound of garlic scapes
1.25 cups grated parmesan
1 cup of quality olive oil
1 tablespoon of apple scrap vinegar or vinegar with the mother
smoked salt
fresh ground pepper
Wash scapes and then blend all this together in a blender until desired consistency. We serve this over pasta or chicken. You can use it any way you would use pesto.
Tools/Products Used:
This is the section where I use affiliate links. If you use these to purchase I will get a small amount of money in return. I do not post anything I have not used and tested, if I ever do I will make sure you know. All of the products below I have used and abused a lot.
Ninja Blender: https://amzn.to/3ruPVl8
Excalibur: https://amzn.to/3Df8psy
Excalibur tray liners: https://amzn.to/3rBGocc
Food Safe Silica Packets: https://amzn.to/3DjDYl6
Hickory Smoked Salt: https://amzn.to/3NV7emP
