Pete and I hit the markets recently the Spice Girl. We had a great time, despite the fact that I’d lost my voice (though Pete might say he had a great time because of that).
SG recently wrote about how she and I are “food twins”, which amused Pete enormously. He commented that the Spice Girl and I were products of convergent evolution – two people from completely unrelated backgrounds who had serendipitously developed similar tastes and interests. This was brought home when we passed a vegetable stand selling young Australian garlic. It’s so rare to find local garlic at the markets that I immediately picked up four of the seven bunches on the table, then wandered off to look at other produce. When I came back five minutes later, SG was buying the remaining three bunches…
Once home, I broke up most of the garlic into cloves and froze them for later use. Did you know that garlic freezes brilliantly? Separate the bulbs into cloves but don’t peel them, and freeze them in an airtight bag. The defrosted garlic lacks the crisp texture of fresh, but the skins slip off easily, there is minimal loss of flavour and aroma, and it’s a breeze to mince them for cooking. Since we’ve started doing this, we haven’t thrown away a single clove of mouldy garlic.
The green stems on the garlic were still quite tender and I was keen to try Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for garlic scape pesto. I started by removing the outer layer of the stems and washing them to remove any residual dirt.
Then I simply popped them into my mini food processor with some flaked almonds, grated parmesan, olive oil and a little salt, and whizzed them until combined. Because mine were the stems rather than the young scapes (flower shoots) Dorie used, the mix was drier and I needed to add a little hot water to loosen it up.
The pesto has a delicious garlic bite and will make a wonderful addition to soups and pasta. I froze half in a ziplock bag and stashed the rest in the fridge with a piece of cling film pressed on the surface, to prevent oxidization.
As always, I’m happiest when I get to use something that would normally be discarded. Waste not, want not!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
Ah I should have checked your site yesterday…then I would have known to add the garlic stems into the basil pesto I was making. What a clever idea.
And yes, only an engineer would think of “convergent evolution” as a way of describing food twins and the mystery around who else might be out there as another twin… :)
I think you should mention that you took freshly baked chocolate cake for your tomato man. Now that is a sign of a real connection with your food suppliers!
Oh, Jimmy the Tomato Man, he’s always looking after us. I couldn’t stand his whining and moaning about how his otherwise perfect wife wouldn’t bake him anything, so I told him I’d bake him a cake. That was weeks ago and now every week he asks me what I’ve brought him. :)
Anyway, I’d made a chocolate slab cake during the week, so I took him some. That’s the nice thing about the slab cake, it’s sooo huge (and easy to make – you get great value for effort) that I was able to cut off a large piece each for Jimmy the Tomato Man, Tim the Boy Wonder AND the kids down the road, and still have enough leftover for Big Boy to graze on for several days. And the pieces were really substantial – it was like each piece was a mini-cake all on its own!
I’m always learning something from reading your blogs……freezing garlic,what a good idea! I have been freezing ginger for some time now, it is so easy to grate when frozen. Thanks Celia, it’s never too late to learn!
You’ll never throw garlic away again, Julie! :)
By the way, the picture light is going up above your artwork as I type – Pete’s just wiring it up now!
Celia
Convergent evolution, indeed! Could be that we’ve converged as well, since this week we both seem to be concerned about not wasting things.
I’m delighted that you liked the garlic scape pesto. My only regret is that I didn’t make more of it when scapes were abundant since it freezes so well. Next year …
It’s really a wonderful recipe, Dorie….thanks again! :)
Sounds like some interesting ideas for using scapes.
we have been advised to let garlics dry out for several weeks(after harvest) before using (think this helps flavour to intensify).
This year we will let you know when garlic picked so that the scapes will be green and fresh.
Thanks Di! I’m quite excited about that.. :)
Do you have a recipe for pickling scapes?
No, I’m sorry, I don’t!