fresh garlic scape pesto

I don't check in on this as often as I would like to, but I have been experimenting more with gardening. I am learning a lot from my mom and from websites. I am trying to keep it as organic as possible and veganic (vegan organic) when I can. I hope eventually to be all veganic. Organic gardening normally still relies on a lot of animal products...especially manure and even composted body parts of animals from factory farms. So veganic means getting away from all those products as much as possible.

The vegan zombie guys are also experimenting with veganic gardening so if you look around their UTube channel you should find some good stuff:
http://www.videorecipetv.com/video/zombiegate/4vEkAz09GJs

Anyway, a garlic scape is the curly little top that comes up on the plant about this time of year. Gardeners cut it off so that the energy of the plant stays in the bulb and not up top. Scapes taste like a combination between garlic and chives, I think. You can use them in a stirfry or soup to up the garlic flavor. But a friend of mine turned me on to making pesto with scapes and I've never looked back. I don't have a particular pesto recipe to recommend but maybe later I will blog my own. For now just experiment if you feel like it. Scapes are popping up in the farmer's markets now!  I would say use a half handful of scapes to two handfuls of basil so the scapes don't overpower the taste. Also I use walnuts and an equal amount of nutritional yeast instead of whatever nuts or parmesan cheese a recipe asks for. The walnuts and "nooch" together make a parmesan flavor profile.

fresh garlic scapes and basil from my garden

...a closer view

and the pesto! there is some in the freezer for this winter