Tag Archives: recipe

Garlic Scape Pesto

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It’s that time of year again – delicious garlic scape harvesting time!

Garlic scapes are the smooth stalks that grow up out of the middle of garlic plants, curling upon themselves before straightening up and flowering. If you cut them from the plant before they flower, they pack a scrumptious culinary punch of garlic-ky flavour that is perfect for pestos. 

This weekend, Chris and I took our cue from the plants and cut a handful of scapes from our garlic patch to make a pesto to bring to my parent’s place for my mom’s birthday. It turned out great, although VERY garlic-ky. That strong flavour didn’t deter us, but if you’re new to strong pesto, I’d recommend cutting down on the scape quanity in the recipe your first time around. 

If you’re looking for scapes, I suggest visiting your local farmer’s market to pick some up. They’re only available once a year (or twice if you live in a place where garlic can have two growing seasons a year), so you should snap them up when you see them. They won’t be around for long.

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Garlic Scape Pesto (from Chris’ back pocket arsenal of tried-and-true recipes)

2 C garlic scapes
1 C nuts (pine nuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, etc) We used walnuts.
3/4 C olive oil 
1/2 C lemon juice (1 lg lemon squeezed)
1/2 tsp salt

Chop up scapes, put everything in a food processor and blend. 

If you try it out, let us know what you think!

Rhubarb Muffins for a Rainy Day

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It’s rainy today. Really, really rainy. I have lots of work I could be doing outside in the gardens, but I feel like this kind of rain gives me an excuse to stay inside, get caught up on blogging and reading, and try out a new recipe or two.

Food is growing on the property and it’s been fun to start adding home-grown goods to our meals. We’ve been adding wild stining nettles to our smoothies, mashed potatoes and home-brewed beer experiments for awhile now, but the past few days have given us a chance to harvest and eat some of our rhubarb and radishes too. 

On Saturday I made a rhubarb crumble and while outside taking care of the animals this morning, I harvested some more to try out a rhubarb muffin recipe. (I’m totally growing a new appreciation for the tanginess and tartness of rhubarb – sooo good!).

I did a google search for vegan rhubarb recipes since there are none in my vegan cookbooks. I came across a muffin recipe that I adjusted for the ingredients I had/ wanted to use. They turned out really well (I just gobbled up two of them). The rhubarb pieces add a really wonderful flavour and moisture to them. Here’s the recipe that resulted from my combined google search/ personal adjustments:

Combine:

1 1/2 C diced rhubarb pieces
2/3 C brown sugar
1 1/2 C spelt flour
1/3 C oil 
2/3 C apple sauce
1/3 C almond milk
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp allspice
sprinkle of nutmeg

Pour into greased muffin tins. Bake for 30 mins at 350F. Makes 1 dozen. 

Baked Pumpkin & Millet Pilaf

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Since this was the view outside my trailer windows today, C & I decided to stay in and make ourselves something warm and wonderful to eat. Our baked pumpkin and millet pilaf creation was made from ingredients we already had, all of which (other than the Daiya cheese) could be grown and harvested here in Maple Ridge. The pumpkin was actually a 3 month old purchase from the local farmers market – squash store well!

We didn’t follow a recipe, but I’ll list the ingredients used. Since squash are such an easy vegetable to grow and store, experimenting with different ways of eating them is something we’d like to do more of. 

Ingredient list:

  • 1 small pumpkin
  • 1.5 C millet
  • 2 carrots
  • 1/2 green pepper
  • 1 tomato
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1 clove of (grown here on the farm) garlic
  • 6 mushrooms
  • cumin & tumeric to taste
  • salt & pepper to taste
  • daiya cheese sprinkled on top (another ‘cheesy’ option would be nutritional yeast)

Our process:

We cut the pumpkin in half and scooped out the seeds and stringy bits, then baked the two halves (placed upside down on a baking sheet) for about 45 mins at 375 F. While the pumpkin was baking we cooked the millet. It was my first time cooking millet and it’s super easy – a lot like cooking couscous. Toss the millet and water in a pot (1 C of millet requires 2 C of water), bring to boil, reduce and simmer till it has puffed up and absorbed all the water. We sauteed the veggies about 10 minutes before we were ready to eat (garlic and onion first, followed by mushrooms, carrots, peppers, and finally tomatoes), tossed in our spices and the millet, stirred it all together and scooped it onto our plates next to the straight-from-the-oven pumpkin. We topped it all off with some cheddar daiya cheese.

The pumpkin flesh fell away from the skin incredibly easily and the combination of flavors was seriously delicious. A great way to spend a very snowy day indoors and a big motivation to keep experimenting with squash and products that could easily be grown ourselves.