its good that i'm single...

So, remember the CSA? and my vow to make healthy eating less healthy?

Enter Garlic Scape Pesto.

i love pesto... i went so far as to ask for (ok, kind of throw a 5-year-old temper tantrum and INSIST upon) an entire aerogarden for christmas just so i could grow basil in my less-than-sunny apartment so that i could make pesto year-round...

i also love garlic scapes... therefore, when i stumbled upon this post over at the washington post, i knew exactly what last week's scapes were going to be...

all of my requirements - use of a CSA product, lots of FAT and oh yeah, insanely yummy...

be prepared... while scapes are significantly less pungent than actual garlic (i mean, can you imagine doing this with a cup of garlic cloves?????? yikes!), you will still pretty much stink for the next day or so... i suggest only eating if you have a full pack of gum to take to work the next day...

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Garlic Scape Pesto
Courtesy of A Mighty Appetite/Kim O'Donnel/Washington Post (with minor mods by me)

generous 1 cup garlic scapes (stalks only), cut into ¼-inch slices
generous 1/3 cup walnuts
¾ cup olive oil
1/2 cup grated parmigiano
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tsp black pepper

Place scapes and walnuts in an electric minichopper and chop until fairly integrated and all pieces are small. (if you are fancy and own a food processor then you can use that too, show off...)
(At this point, i had to seperate my garlic scapes and walnuts into two batches, as my mini-chopper is, well, mini...)

Add oil and continue chopping.

Add salt & pepper (can adjust amounts to suit your tastes, so you may want to start with a little less and i really like salt and pepper) and continue chopping.

Unless you intend to freeze*, add parmesan and chop a little more.

Sample and adjust as desired.

*If you intend to freeze your pesto, leave out the parmesan and either freeze in a thin sheet (for breaking) or in ice cube trays, as shown here. Add parmesan when thawing for use.

Toss about 2 generous tablespoons with about a half - 3/4 c of your favorite pasta... Angel hair works really well when you need a superfast weeknight dinner ;)

because i like to drink the kool-aid

so i guess its time i got back to actually putting FOOD on this thing, huh?

ok, so here's a happy coincidence which leads to a new! original! recipe...

somehow i ended up hosting the two major food holidays this year - thanksgiving and christmas... decidedly different audiences for each and decidedly different menus as well...

well, sorta.

since my appetizers were such a hit at thanksgiving and since my parents werent here for thanksgiving, recycling them all seemed not only acceptable - but like the right thing to do... of course, i'm never one to be outdone by my prior self, so i had to add something to the mix...

so i decided to go with some tried and true pinwheels... you know, the kind you make with a tube of the pop-open refrigerator cans? the kind they use at parties to demonstrate the many uses of the pampered chef baking stone???

or, at least kinda... cause despite the fact that my parents have a FABULOUS, jealous-rage-inducing rosemary bush in their backyard, my mother doesnt like rosemary... therefore, the traditional recipe just wasnt going to cut it...

anyway, all that blah blah blah to tell you that i was planning on making up some pinwheels before i even knew i'd be opening the baking stone... and in a true moment of things working out the way they are supposed to, we read the stone instructions on how to properly 'season' the surface and it said "bake high fat foods (e.g. refrigerated biscuits) for the first several uses."

and really, who am i to argue?

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Pesto Pinwheels
courtesy of me

1 can refrigerated crescent rolls
2 cubes of pesto
~ 1/4 cup of feta
handful of pine nuts

Preheat oven to 375°F.

separate dough into four rectangles and press seams to seal. (or make your mom do that part like i did)

put pesto cubes in microwave for about 45 seconds until they have turned back into something spreadable

divide pesto evenly among the 4 squares and spread on each, leaving about 1/4" around each edge.

divide feta evenly among the 4 squares and sprinkle over the pesto.

roll up each rectangle (either way - it doesnt really matter so much) and pinch edges to seal.

cut each log into 4 to 6 pieces and place the little pinwheels on your baking stone (or a cookie sheet)

push 3 - 4 pine nuts into each pinwheel and slightly flatten each one with the palm of your hand.

bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Serve warm.

anything you can do, i can do better...

you know how there's that theory that everyone can do exactly one thing better than anyone else in the world?

i'm pretty sure my talent is pesto...
which is nuts, considering i'd never even heard of pesto until i was like, 22 or maybe even older... (yes, i'm italian. take your concerns up with my father...)

sure, there was a questionable first time... you know, back when i didnt know the difference between a





clove of garlic





and





a whole bulb...









you can probably guess that adding 2 of the one on the right instead of 2 of the one on the left (to anything) may have a *tiny* impact, no?
(don't try it. learn from my mistake. trust me on this one.)

Aside from that whole 'vocabulary' thing, its actually quite easy to make pesto (making it fairly sad that i consider it to be my greatest talent...)



for me, the hard part was measuring and writing it all down so that i could post it here... because, aside from being the thing i do better than anyone else, its also the ONLY thing i do based on feel & taste alone instead of measurments...

the funny part about this receipe is that, save for a little smeared on a pita late one night, i havent eaten any of it yet... i'd bought basil about 3 times this year in hopes of making pesto, each time, not getting around to it until the basil had wilted and turned and gone bad... (its quite sensitive that way) i was hell-bent on not letting that happen again... so even though i wasnt ready to eat it, i made it anyway. and froze it...







no, your eyes arent deceiving you - that's pesto-in-an-ice-cube-tray. a teal ice cube tray, cause i'm a rockstar like that ;) (i considered making mickey shaped pesto but thought the better of it...)

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Kick-Ass Basil Pesto
courtesy of me (and a billion others, i'm sure...)

1 large bunch of basil (like, lots of leaves and stems about an inch or a little more thick) probably about 3 lightly packed cups of leaves...

2 large (or 3 medium) cloves of garlic, minced
3/8 c of good, flavorful olive oil
1/2 tbsp coarse sea salt

3 - 4 tbsp pine nuts, toasted if desired

1/3 c fresh grated parmesan cheese


remove all basil leaves from stems and wash off all remaining dirt.
(one method is to soak leaves in bowl of water, allowing dirt to settle to the bottom and repeating until the water is clear. alternate method is to use a collander. i've done both in my lifetime.)
dry leaves as much as possible, either using a salad spinner or clean towels or paper towels or any other method aside from your dryer...

place all leaves in a mini-chopper. if you dont have a mini-chopper, this recipe has been made in a blender. (a jeff gordon blender, at that) and came out just fine. so improvise...

add the garlic and 1/4 c of the oil. chop, blend, do whatever it is your machinery does until the basil looks well chopped. Open the machine, manually stir around the stuff to make sure that no leaves are stuck on the side, under the blade or anywhere else where they wouldnt get chopped, add the remaining oil and the sea salt and chop/blend/whatever again...

add pine nuts. (if you want to have toasted pine nuts, you can throw them in a sauce pan over medium heat for a minute or so. quite honestly, i dont taste that much of a difference, but you may...)

chop again.

*******************************
if you are going to be using the pesto soon (as in, not making pesto ice cubes) add the parmesan. start with 1/4 c and taste it. I like my pesto fairly cheesy, though i have seen recipes that call for even more... you may not... if you are like me, add the rest of the cheese and blend for a few seconds. if not, just keep adding and tasting til you get it the way you like it...

check the consistency. this makes a fairly firm pesto. you may like yours a bit less so - add olive oil 1 tbsp at a time until you get the consistency and taste you like best. keep in mind that, while olive oil is good fat, its still fat. (i'm looking at you, dad...)



toss over nearly any kind of pasta (gnocchi and tortellini are particularly good candidates) or use for a million other things... pizza, other kinds of pasta mixed with feta, muffins, etc. the possibilities go on and on and on...

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if you are going to freeze it, dont put the cheese in. (some say dont put the nuts in either but i laugh at them...) instead, divide up into an ice cube tray. This recipe will most likely give you 10 or so cubes if you freeze it all.

When you are ready to use, thaw and add about 1 tbsp of grated cheese per cube.




(dont they look like alfalfa cubes??? dont most of you wish you knew what alfalfa cubes were?????)