Garlic Scape Pesto

garlic scape pesto w/zucchini and pasta

As written, I made the garlic scape pesto last night to have with some Eden Vegetable Spiral Pasta (bought in bulk at the Coop last week).  Let’s just say that you must LOVE garlic to have this pesto and you must LOVE the person who eats it with you – it’s stinky, but delicious!

I modified the recipe from Dorie Greenspan because I didn’t have enough garlic scapes and I didn’t want to use that amoount of olive oil.  So here is my version – it makes enough for about a full pint size jar.

Garlic Scape Pesto

Ingredients:

• 7-8 garlic scapes, roughly chopped
• juice of 1 lemon
• zest of one lemon
• 1/4 cup toasted slivered almonds
• glug or two of olive oil
• 1-2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese (if you have it, I used some leftover ricotta from 6/24)
• Salt
• Pepper

To Do:

1. Put garlic everything up to the olive oil in the food processor and pulse.   Scrape down sides and pulse again until the mixture comes together.
2. Add the olive oil in a drizzle until you get the consistency you want (I liked mine kind of creamy, so I didn’t add a lot, just a glug).
3. Taste.  Add salt if it needs it – if you used Parmesan, you might not need much.  Add some pepper to taste.  Serve with fresh, hot pasta or spread it on sandwiches or even use as a dip for vegetables.

This Week’s Receipt

I think the only exciting food item here is the rhubarb.  I plan on making some muesli for healthy breakfasts this week and then it’ll just be lots of nice greens for dinner/lunch.  We still have to use up the garlic scapes that were part of the CSA bounty and I think we’re going to try this garlic scape recipe from Dorie Greenspan.  For breakfast today, we ate a piece of some mini banana/blueberry loaves I baked last night.  I ended up grinding amaranth and adding it to the corn flour/WW flour mixture to add some nutritional value to the bread and it came out great!  I’ll be making up some more batches before posting the recipe in order to get the proportions right, but WOW!

We made it right up to our $30/Week budget last night, as I had to get some cilantro and a jalepeno pepper.  The entire cost of last week’s budget was: $29.54.  This week, we have $9.12 left.

Easiest Hors’Dourves

The other night we had a friend over and didn’t want to go crazy with a dinner, so we decided to use up some of the cheese we had in the fridge and I went to Jack’s 99 Cent Store and bought $1 crackers and a can of black olives (also $1, bringing our total to $28).  I decided to make a simple tapenade with some sundried tomatoes we had lurking in the pantry (note to self: cleaning pantry can expose spices you thought forgotten).  This tapenade tasted great on crackers, but could also work as a quick topping for pasta or as a dip for grilled or raw veggies or on some grilled bread with tomatoes.  The possibilities are endless!

Tapenade w/Sundried Tomatoes

Ingredients:

• 1 medium can of black olives
• 3 or 4 sundried tomatoes, soaked in water for 10 minutes (reserve water)
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
• pepper
• chili pepper flakes
• olive oil
• juice of half a lemon and some of its zest

To Do:

1. Place the olives, sundried tomatoes and garlic in food processor and pulse until it all comes together.
2. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add the lemon juice, zest and pepper and chili pepper flakes to taste.  I like mine a bit spicy, so I put more garlic and chili pepper flakes in the mix.  Pulse until the mixture gets a little smoother, but still remains chunky.
3. Add a bit of olive oil if you like (I used a tiny drizzle) and pulse again.  If you think the mixture needs more liquid to bind it together, add some of the reserved sundried tomato soaking water.
4. Serve with just about anything.  Makes a little more than a cup and will last a good while in the fridge.

This Week’s Receipt

I went to Chinatown yesterday morning to get some veggies because I knew it would be pouring by the time I got out of work.  I got:

• celery: $1
• scallions: .50
• daikon (very small piece, possibly for the kimchi making?): .25
• lettuce: 1.00
• cucumbers: .75
• TOTAL: 3.50

Add that to the 22.50 spent at the Coop early this morning (it’s supposed to rain again this afternoon) and our weekly total is at $26.00.

Chard Frittata

Here’s the recipe for that chard frittata we made from the CSA haul last week.

Chard Frittata

1 bunch rainbow chard, stemmed and chiffonaded
1 medium onion, chopped
6 eggs
olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. In a medium cast iron skilled sautee the onion and chopped chard stems in olive oil.
3. Once the onions and stems are softened, add the chiffonaded chard leaves and put a lid over the skillet. This will be a big pile of greens, so make sure to turn them periodically to make sure they get cooked all around.
4. Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a bowl with some salt and pepper.
5. When they chard is cooked down, dump the veggies into a collander and to let the excess liquid drain.
6. With the skillet reasonably dry, put a bit more oil in the pan and then layer in eggs and veggies.
7. Put the skillet in the oven and bake for half an hour, or until the top is totally solid. You might want to stick it under the broiler to brown the top.

Enjoy!

If you want, you could top it with some shredded cheese. Or serve it in a sandwich like we did.

CSA Bounty Realized

Here are some of the things we made with the CSA box before we went on vacation.

Swiss Chard Frittata Sandwich

Potato Escarole Soup

Spinach Ricotta Lasagne

Potato & Escarole Soup: Sadly, You’ll Have to Wait for Pictures

Last night our little kitchen was a hive of busy activity. While we didn’t get around to the kimchi (we figured the cabbage would keep until Monday in one of our green bags), we did make an amazing frittata featuring a huge amount of Swiss chard, a big salad with the red-leaf lettuce, spinach/ricotta lasagne, and a potato and escarole soup that I am eating right now. This soup is fantastic and actually would work for summer. We doled out portions for our lunches today and froze the rest and I think this soup would be excellent hot or cold (I’m eating it semi-chilled). We were able to do all of that in about 45 minutes of prep time and now have good things to eat when we return. Thank you all for your suggestions! In the frenzy of cooking and packing, we took photos, but forgot to actually post them – get ready for those later.

In the meantime, here is the potato and escarole soup recipe.

Potato and Escarole Soup

Ingredients:

• 3-4 smashed cloves of garlic
• glug of olive oil
• 1 small onion, roughly chopped
• 3 medium/large baking potatoes, peeled and chopped
• water and freezer scraps (I’ll explain) or vegetable broth (optional)
• 1 large head of escarole, washed well and roughly chopped
• salt and pepper to taste

To Do:

1. Sautee the garlic and the onion in a large soup pot with the olive oil until they are lightly browned and the kitchen smells good.
2. Put potatoes in the pot and stir around a bit. Add enough water to cover the potatoes.
3. If you have freezer vegetable scraps, wrap them in a cheese cloth and stick them in the pot too. Add more water to cover the freezer veggie bag and bring to a boil. If you don’t want to deal with the cheesecloth/freezer veggies, just throw in some regular stock. I have a hunch this will also work with plain ol’ water, but the addition of stock will make it richer. Cover with a lid and simmer for about a half hour or so. I think mine was on the stove for 45 minutes. Meh, I say. It’s just simmering.
4. Take the pot off the heat and let cool for a while. Remove cheesecloth bag and use tongs to squeeze out excess broth (be careful its HOT).
5. Throw in escarole and put lid back on the pot. Go pack things or do dishes or watch The X-Files. Give the escarole time to wilt.  Add salt and pepper to your liking.
6. Take out the solids and blend in a food processor or blender, adding liquid as necessary. Make your soup as thick or as thin as you like it. I like a medium-thick soup, so I had a quite a bit of broth leftover (which I strained and froze, waste not!).
7. Soup can be served hot (winter, crusty bread, cheese sandwiches, etc.) or cold (salad, olives, cheese plate).

Possibilities Abound

We’re going to attempt some stuff tonight. Namely:

1. Spinach lasagne (freezing for later consumption)
2. Kimchi (ahhhh!)
3. Escarole and Potato Soup (freezing for later consumption)

That leaves us to eat the humongous head of lettuce and the chard. Maybe a frittata will be made from the chard and eaten tonight with a salad.  I love the loose recipe that Anne left us in the comments (white beans, sauteed garlic scapes, wilted greens and Sriracha), but we are out of white beans.

Money Update:

• .99 – Yves Veggie “Meatballs”
• .99 – Yves Veggie Ground “Meat”
• 1.29 – Cheddar Cheese
• 1.49 – can of plum tomatoes
• 1.79 – eggs
• 2.99 – soy sauce
• 1.99 – lasagne noodles
• 2.79 – ricotta
• 1.00 – WW rolls (2)
• 1.20 – potatoes

Total: 14.32 + 8.07 = 24.39

Nature’s Amazing Bounty

Like Tina said in the last post, a colleague of mine went out of down this week and donated her West Village CSA share to us. I went down to pick it up this afternoon and came away with the following items:

Bright Lights Swiss Chard: 1 bunch
Summer Spinach: 1 bunch
Napa Cabbage: 1 head
Red Leaf Lettuce: 1 head
Escarole: 1 head
Garlic Scapes: 6
Oregano: 1 bunch
Chives: 1 bunch

Needless to say, we are all set for produce this week, so we’re free to use our budget to stock up on some staples that are running low, like olive oil, soy sauce, salt, and maybe some Sriracha (which is honestly a staple for us).

The only thing is that we are going out of town this weekend for a wedding, so we need to use up these veggies stat, at least to make some food that we can freeze and eat when we get back. So far, we’re thinking we might try a spinach lasagna, and maybe some caldo verde. The cabbage, garlic scapes, and herbs will hopefully last until we get back.

If anybody has other suggestions for how to use this stuff in a hurry, let us know.

More food!

Add another $2.71 to last week’s receipt (Brussels sprouts and lettuce purchase on Saturday evening).  Our total came in at: $28.96.

This week we are lucking out (hopefully).  A co-worker of Phil’s has offered their CSA box since they’re on vacation for the week and we’re heading to Cape May, NJ this Friday for a wedding.  This is fortuitous timing as we are currently out of olive oil, soy sauce and salt.  Started the week at Trader Joe’s where I bought:

• bag of carrots: .89
• extra virgin olive oil: 5.99
• mini baguette: 1.19
• TOTAL: 8.07

Let’s see where the week goes!