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| Beet greens and chopped aspargus |
It's a challenge to incorporate all those spring greens in the CSA box into recipes, especially if you didn't grow up eating them. Last week I made this wonderful (and easy) pasta dish using beet greens, asparagus and garlic scapes.
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| Garlic Scapes |
Other greens like escarole, collards, kale, broccoli rabe and spinach can be used with or in place of the beet greens.
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| Quick saute in olive oil |
Cook paste as directed on the box. While pasta cooks, chop asparagus into 1 inch pieces. Clean and chop beet greens. Cut up garlic scapes or use garlic if you don't have any scapes. Saute asparagus and garlic or scapes for 2 minutes and add beet greens. Cover and cook for another 2-3 minutes until wilted. Add 3 or 4 tablespoons of pesto (I make pesto every year in September and freeze it in ice cube trays, then bag it for use all winter.) Alternatively, use store bought pesto. Add pepper and salt to taste. Add a tablespoon or two of pasta water.
Drain pasta and add to the pan with the veggies and mix well.
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| Angel Hair Primavera with Beet Greens and Asparagus |
Garnish with fresh basil leaves and serve with grated Romano or Parmesean cheese. Both the asparagus and the beet greens were very mild flavored, as are the garlic scapes. The dish was soothing and quite satisfying.
Delicious can be nutritious too!
Looks yummy. I've got a ton of scapes in the fridge. Will have to try this.
ReplyDeleteGarlic Scapes, I toss 4 to 6 hundred of these every year. I tasted them done in oil once, not bad, but we don't bother because 4 to 6 hundred scapes in June, means 4 to 6 hundred bulbs in July. LOL, we start harvesting tomorrow!!!
ReplyDeleteHow big is your garden? I read that the garlic bulbs will be bigger in August if you harvest the scapes.
ReplyDeleteTry grilling them along with asparagus. Delicious!
The main Garden is L shaped. If it were in line it would be 12 by 48. We dedicate about a third of the space to garlic. The garlic suffered from this years warm winter. Half the plants did not generate segmented bulbs, just the baseballs associated with too warm a dormant season.
ReplyDeleteThe berry garden is 16 by 24. That garden was destroyed by last years flood. Only 1 blueberry plant and 4 strawberry plants survived Irene, and the replanting of 100 strawberries all died within weeks. It is going to take massive amounts of gypsum and sulfur to restore the soil this fall.
The 2 by 100 border flowering bulb garden did much better. The Grape Hyacinths, Daffodils, and Tulips gave a wonderful Spring display. Now that we are into Summer bloom, the Asiatic Lilies are looking real good, but with summer comes the mum-weed. We just finished our month long drudgery of digging out the carpet of mum-weed.
You must really LOVE garlic! your garden sounds impressive. . Lots of work but gardening counts as exercise so it's all good! So sad about the berries.
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