RECIPE: Pesto Variations

Difficulty Level: EASY

 

We recently got a lot of great ingredients for pesto.  The garlic scapes can be made into a robust, very garlicky pesto on their own, but I prefer using a few garlic scapes in a batch of herb pesto to add a subtler flavor. The trick is to blend the scapes in olive oil first, because they need more time through the blender than the herbs do -- add in softer ingredients once the scapes are pulverized. Try the following combinations for a delicious topping for pasta, rice, salmon or chicken:

2 scapes, 3 TB olive oil, 1 tsp salt, 1 good squeeze of a lemon, and the entire bunch of fresh dill, trimmed and washed (this is actually delicious in chicken soup!)

2 scapes, 3 TB olive oil, 1 tsp salt, 1 TB parmesan, plus the bunch of spinach or arugula or kale, trimmed, washed, and boiled for 1-2 minutes and then mostly drained.

OR the whole bunch of scapes, 3 TB olive oil, 1 tsp salt, 1  good squeeze of a lemon and the fresh dill PLUS the slightly cooked spinach/arugula/kale. 

 

 

I went easy on the salt because I knew I'd be putting mine on smoked salmon, but you'll probably want to add a little more salt and possibly pepper depending on what you decide to use these for.

Submitted by Adrienne Mishkin