Chocolate-It's What's for Dinner

Well back to using up the rest of those garlic scapes. I thought they would go nicely with some pasta. They did but they were a little difficult to eat. They get a little unruly.  I had thought of using fusilli pasta but that would have been totally out of hand. Pasta with Tomatoes & Scapes 1lb of grape tomatoes handful of basil olive oil salt/pepper garlic scapes 1lb pasta Parmesan Cheese Cut the tomatoes in half and the larger ones in quarters. Put pasta water on to boil. Add olive oil to a hot skillet and toss in the tomatoes. Add salt and pepper. Toss in some torn basil leaves. Meanwhile place the pasta and scapes into boiling water. When scapes are tender (about 5 minutes) remove tomatoes from skillet to a serving bowl. Add some additional olive oil to the skillet. Using a spider drain scapes and place in skillet. Do not toss scapes - let them brown and then toss. Drain pasta saving some of the pasta water. Place pasta into the serving bowl. Add scapes and to...

Tis the season for garlic scapes. June is the month when the garlic scapes start growing. Scapes are the flower buds on the garlic. You need to cut them off so that more energy goes into the garlic bulb ( see last year's harvest here ) before you harvest the garlic. They have a mild garlic flavor when cooked and beat string beans any day. You can prepare them just about anyway that you would prepare string beans. In their raw state they have a strong garlic flavor and are a little tough. I just did a quick steam and saute. Scapes Salt Olive Oil Place scapes in steamer basket. Steam scapes with the lid tilted. Do not put the lid totally on or the scapes will lose that rich green color. Steam until tender. In a skillet add oil. Toss scapes with salt and saute until scapes have a little color on them. Serve I also tossed on a little balsamic reduction. Although it didn't stay on too well because of the olive oil that was already on the scapes. It did add some nice flavo...