Thursday, June 18, 2009

Garlic Scapes and Radishes: C.S.A Week #1

This summer I joined a CSA. What is a CSA some of you may ask? Well it stands for Community Supported Agriculture and it means that you pre-purchase a share of a farm's harvest. My friend Blaze (lives in Nashville) joined one last summer that she raved about and this summer Ruby and I joined the Covered Bridge Gardens. For the next sixteen weeks we will be receiving a portion of the latest pickings and last night I picked up the first share: popcorn, green onions, garlic scapes, broccoli, and radishes.


I started with the popcorn, popped in a little oil on the stove; fresh and white and lovely with a little truffle salt and fresh rosemary.


Next up are the radishes. Taking inspiration from the Greenhouse Tavern, I am going to keep the radishes simple and let their spicy flavor shine by eating them with just a dab of herbed butter. I will herb the butter with some of the garlic scapes and green onions, fresh basil and rosemary, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a 1/2 tsp of kosher salt.


I'm not very familiar with garlic scapes (AKA green garlic) so I did some googling and came across this article from the June 2008 NY Times on having "A Garlic Festival without a Single Clove". I am going to make the White Bean and Garlic Scape dip to take down to Columbus with me this weekend. I think it will be perfect with carrots and celery sticks and pita triangles.



White Bean and Garlic Scape Dip

1/3 cup sliced garlic scapes (3 to 4)
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice, more to taste
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt, more to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for drizzling.


1. In a food processor, process garlic scapes with lemon juice, salt and pepper until finely chopped. Add cannellini beans and process to a rough purée. 2. With motor running, slowly drizzle olive oil through feed tube and process until fairly smooth. Pulse in 2 or 3 tablespoons water, or more, until mixture is the consistency of a dip. Add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice, if desired. 3. Spread out dip on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with more salt.
Yield: 1 1/2 cups.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Robin made that bean dip last night, it was good!

Molls said...

Is Robin in the same CSA too? What did she dip in it?

Unknown said...

Yeah she's in it too. She used pita chips, I think I am going to use carrots, or the radishes!

mcm.hannah said...

Matt and I joined one as well and just picked up our first share Friday. I am so excited for this summer's fresh shares!