Forgive me if it seems like I'm drawing this post out, but it might have to be a three parter...
Truthfully, it is three separate posts worth of stuff, but I'm sure you could probably guess that I've yet to put heat to pan and camera to results.
What can I say? At least I'm consistently disappointing.
So delving into my past (again) I came across a bunch of posts that I had been photographing over the course of the summer last year all pertaining to one of my favorite little green guys, the garlic scape.
What is a garlic scape you may be asking (probably not as I have pretty sophisticated reader(s)?
Well a garlic scape is a shoot that comes out of a garlic plant about this time of year that if not cut will inhibit the growth of the garlic pod, which is why most farmers cut it of either way. Good news? It's delicious. Bad news? There is no bad news! It's a win/win!
Hooray for nature!
So to begin our adventure, we start where we so often do, at grandma and poppa's house, more specifically this time, in their garden...
That last picture is the garlic plants in their natural state, the scapes are the shoots shooting up (as it were).
So what do you do with garlic scapes?
Well, I counter your dumb question with a smart one: what can't you do with garlic scapes... (see what I did there?)
They are like a mellow, less "spicy" version of garlic that will add a wonderful flavor and nice toothsome bite to just about anything you'd add any vegetable to. I like them cut into one to two inch pieces and sauteed in butter with salt best.
Last summer I went on a veritable garlic scape rampage and put them in just about everything, and that just-about-everything benefited from them.
But we'll get there, first let's spend some summertime-y time with my children in the garden.
Now my kids LOVE the garden. They love planting, they love watering, they love weeding, they love picking.
There's a calm and a seriousness that comes over them when they are in the garden that reminds me of the way people act when they are in a huge Cathedral even if they aren't religious. They respect the garden.
They love just about everything in the garden except the food that's grown in the garden.
With the exception of carrots and fat peas that is...
Oh well.
So what does one do with garden fresh garlic scapes?
Well, if you're trying to get three posts out of this like I am, you wait until next time.
So that's what imagonedo.
So until then, my friends...
Until then...
"peas" out,
n*
