Garlic Scape Pesto Pasta

Something I have been meaning to try for a long time now is a garlic scape. Scapes are the stalk and flower head of a garlic plant that growers chop off so the plant concentrates its efforts on growing the bulb instead of flowers. Cook them a bit like asparagus and they are delicious on their own but the internet is full of recipes for scape pesto so I just had to give it a go, especially as the Little Larry's love pesto. We had some parmesan cheese leftover in the fridge and some chickpeas so it all went in the food processor with a few additional ingredients and this is what we ended up with.

Ingredients:

Pasta of choice
Parmesan cheese, 25g grated for the pesto with a bit left over to shave for topping
Chickpeas, half a tin
Basil leaves, a good handful
Flat leaf parsley, another good handful, leaves separated from stalks. Stalks are for the pesto, leaves for the garnish.
1/2 Lemon juice
3x Garlic scapes, chopped up
1/5 tbsp Cold pressed rape seed oil
Good pinch of salt and pepper


Method:

1. Cook the pasta as per packet instructions
2. To make the pesto simply bung all the remaining ingredients into a food processor and whiz it up.
3. When the pasta is cooked drain it but leave a little bit of water in the bottom of the pan. Mix through a good spoonful of the pesto then plate up. Top with parmesan shavings, parsley leaves, a dribble of rapeseed oil, some cracked black pepper and sea salt.

Garlic Scapes courtesy of The Garlic Farm