Farm Stand Food

This week’s farm stand produce includes lettuce, cabbage, beets, radishes, peas, green beans, and garlic scapes. I thought it would be beneficial to begin sharing some recipes to use what’s fresh and in season. 

Beets and Cabbage:

This Beet Slaw recipe has been on repeat at our house, and was also a hit at a recent pot luck meal. While the recipe calls for a food processor with a grating blade to make quick work of shredding the veggies, I used a mandoline slicer on the julienne setting. 

Garlic Scapes:

This obscure veggie is a hidden gem! Garlic scapes are the flowering portion of the garlic plant, which is removed before it blooms so that the plant can focus all its energy into producing bulbs. It has a mild garlic flavor, with texture similar to asparagus. Here are our favorite ways to make garlic scapes, and some new recipes I would like to try:

Sauteed Garlic Scapes:

I like to cut garlic scapes into bite-size pieces and saute them with green beans or asparagus. They also work very well in stir-fries. 

Fermented Garlic Scapes:

A few years ago, I learned how to lacto-ferment a variety of vegetables, and this was a favorite. They last a long time in the refrigerator and add flavor to chicken or tuna salad when diced small. I used this recipe from Cultures for Health. While you’re trying your hand at fermenting vegetables, I definitely recommend making sauerkraut.

Garlic Scape Pesto

There are so many great recipes out there for pesto, but Mike Greenfield’s looks so simple, with very few ingredients - just scapes, pistachios, lemon zest/juice, and olive oil. This is the recipe I will be trying this year. His entire Instagram reel is full of practical uses for scapes, but the pesto recipe is at the end.

Garlic Scape Powder and/or Compound Butter

Puree garlic scapes in the food processor, then dehydrate it to make garlic scape powder or add to softened butter to make compound butter. Brelsford Family Homestead has a good tutorial here.