Pasta with Garlic Scape Pesto and Roasted Beet and Orange Salad

A couple of weeks ago, the CSA box had something in it I have never cooked (or even seen) before - Garlic Scapes. These are the shoots that grow up out of the garlic bulb as it tries to become a plant. We eat the garlic bulb, so the farmers cut off the scapes before they flower and leave the bulb to continue to grow. I have read that the scapes have a "delicate" garlic flavor. Our experience was that they pack a serious punch of garlicky power. They are lovely to look at as well.

There are dozens of recipes (maybe hundreds) on the web for garlic scape pesto. I used less oil than called for - a trick I learned from Weight Watchers - I substituted vegetable broth for some of the oil..

Ingredients

1 cup chopped garlic scapes (about 1/2 inch pieces)

1/4 cup pine nuts

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup vegetable broth

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesean Cheese

Pulverize everything in the bowl of a food processor.

It come out a lovely light green color. We did not add basil - but someone told me it is a nice addition.

We had our pesto with spiral pasta (Barilla Plus - for protein)

Our side dish was made from another stand out in the early summer CSA share - beets. I usually roast them whole, but D.has a new cook book, called Fast Fresh & Green by Susie Middleton


She recommended "quick roasting" the beets by slicing them thinly crosswise, tossing them with olive oil, coarsely chopped fresh thyme and a little salt, and roasting them at 475 degrees for 16 to 18 minutes. We did them this way and they were fabulous. We served them on top of some leaf lettuce with chopped navel orange slices and just a little Feta cheese.This should have been topped with a little fresh mint as well - but we got hungry and skipped right to eating.

Spinach & Ricotta Pizza

Another use for the spinach in one of our first few CSA boxes of the year. Bought the whole dough to make the crust at Trader Joe's.

Washed and chopped the spinach...

Diced a few sun dried tomatoes...

Grated some Parmesean...

Sauteed an onion in a little olive oil, then added the spinach and cooked it just till it wilted and was still bright green

Threw some dollops of Ricotta cheese on the crust, sprinkled on the tomatoes and a few chopped Calamat olives, then the spinach and onion mix, then the Parmesean. Baked it at 450 for 5-6 minutes.

Day 8: Veggie Strata

On hand: red onion & broccoli from the CSA share, mushrooms, fresh eggs from a friend at work, stale ends of white & whole wheat Calandra sliced Lanella bread, various cheeses to choose from.

What to make?  Strata

How I did it:

• Diced the red onion, sliced the mushrooms, sauteed them in 1 tablespoon olive oil till starting to brown
• chopped the broccoli - smallish pieces. steamed it till bright green and still a little crisp and mixed it with the onions & mushrooms and added 1 tsp Annie's Organic Vegan Worcestershire sauce
• cut the bread into cubes
• grated 1 1/4 cups low fat cheddar and 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• sprayed a large shallow casserole dish with Olive oil cooking spray, then layered: 1/2 bread, 1/2 veggies, 1/2 cheese - repeat
• Whisked 1 3/4 cups almond milk, 6 eggs, 1 1/2 tablespoons Annie's Organic Dijon mustard, and a little more  Worcestershire sauce, then poured that over the bread and veggies.
• Put in the fridge for about 5 hours, then baked at 350F for 1 hour

Result: "Tastes like dinner and dessert at the same time"

I don't know what that means - but the strata was good.

Day 5: Pasta with Kale, Arugula & Beans

I was going to make a mushroom strata - but I forgot that it has to sit in the fridge for a few hours or overnight before baking and it was late, so I made my usual standby, pasta with whatever is in the fridge. I had kale still left from last week's CSA share and arugula from this weeks share. I was thinking greens and beans, so I googled a recipe and found this one: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000000223294.

I added a chopped white onion - sauteed with the garlic. I used kale and arugula, a can of cannellini beans, just a little chopped red pepper from a jar, more Parmesan than the recipe calls for, and I left out the lemon juice. I used a little of the pasta cooking water to moisten it up a little. It was quick, tasty and filling