Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Garlic Scape Pesto

July 2, 2020 by Mary 6 Comments

Summertime means pesto time, right? Usually it is basil for me but my friend Lainne at Ethel and Tom’s farm stand in Red Hook told me that Kim, from Second Chance Farm was buying bunches and bunches of garlic scapes to make Garlic Scape Pesto, and I was intrigued.

I wondered if she sautéed the scapes first or just pureed them raw…

Great neighbors and friends

At any rate, I naturally bought several bunches and started to hunt down Kim’s number to text her. But then I saw her husband, Charlie, at the dump on Saturday and he had Kim call me! This is my wonderful small town that I live in, in upstate New York. Everybody knows each other or knows someone who knows that person. And everyone wants to be truly helpful and is so sharing. It is so nice!

So, Kim texted me a photo of her handwritten recipe for this Garlic Scape Pesto. I have made it twice already, shared with my kids, and gotten rave reviews – so thank you Kim!!

And no, Kim does not saute them first. The scapes go in raw, chopped in ¼” pieces so that makes this pesto super easy to make. Way easier than the basil variety! No washing of the leaves and letting them dry and no peeling and chopping the garlic.

Another tip I learned while living in Italy, is to buy Parmigiano Reggiano grated, if you’re going to be making a lot of pesto soon, as it makes it so much easier to be able to skip that hand grating step. Because I went grocery shopping often with my friend Cristina, she taught me this little trick, as I was surprised. She said, “Why spend the time? This is just as good!”

Process it well!

Be sure to add the oil streaming in the food processer while it is running to enable it to fully incorporate. Additionally, this will need a few extra minutes to process as you do want to make sure the raw scapes are very finely chopped.

Here you go with the recipe – super quick and easy. Make with LOVE.

GARLIC SCAPE PESTO – serves 4 – 6 on pasta

1 cup of chopped garlic scapes – use the green part only – up to the bulb but do not include the bulb, chopped into ¼” pieces
1/3 cup walnuts
¾ cup extra virgin olive oil
½ cup grated Parmagiano
Salt to taste
Fresh ground pepper to taste

In a food processor, chop the scapes and walnuts until fine. Slowly add in the EVOO to combine. Add the cheese, a large pinch of salt and 20 grinds of fresh black pepper. Process again until all combined and pureed.

To serve on pasta

Boil your pasta 2 minutes less than the lesser amount of time on your package in well salted boiling water. Before draining the pasta, save about ¾ of a cup of the pasta water.

Combine sauce and pasta with a few tablespoons of pasta water to help loosen the sauce, make it adhere to the pasta better and finish cooking the pasta over medium-low heat, stirring constantly.

When the pasta is al dente, serve immediately in warmed bowls. You may add more cheese but I don’t think it needs it. Some additional fresh ground black pepper is nice. A Spumante Brut pairs great!

And of course, you can always add more LOVE.

Cooks’ secret sauces

August 6, 2013 by Mary Frances 20 Comments

Yesterday I had lunch with my friend Jill. Jill’s husband is Dominican and she talked about her big family dinner party she had on Saturday night for her in-laws and other relatives. She recently moved from a co-op to a house in NJ with two young kids, so this was a special dinner with both sides of the family in her new home. Her food was met with rave reviews!

Then she talked about her mother-in-law’s “special sauce.” She said they all have one in the Dominican Republic – the aunts – everyone – and they’re all a bit different. She does not know what’s in it – the fast talking Spanish makes it hard. But it seems like it’s vegetables and all goodness, and sounds like a lot of LOVE. Her husband brings home food from his mother’s house – simple things – like quinoa – but with the special sauce they are spectacular. I asked her if it was tomato based – no. Was it like a chimichurri – no. But her mother-in-law was so respectful of Jill, telling her son, oh well Jill certainly has her “own sauce” and she wouldn’t want to intrude. Larry laughed and said no, Jill doesn’t have a sauce. She said she tried to make one once and it was inedible. So she uses a great bottled sauce that her mother-in-law loved (thought it was her “special sauce”) on the grilled skirt steak she served.

Boy would I love to have that woman’s “special sauce” recipe or be a fly on her kitchen wall when she’s making it!

Meanwhile, last night, being tired and hungry, I used some “bottled sauces” and actually made a very good dinner. It didn’t look all so pretty, but it was darn tasty. I made the chicken and the squash all in the same baking pan, roasting all at once – easy! Providing you have the pesto sauce already made, you can honestly make this whole dinner in about 40 minutes. Really!! – no Rachel Ray joke.

CHICKEN BREASTS WITH GRAINY MUSTARD, JALAPENO & LIME – serves 3 – 4

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 tbs. grainy mustard
Salt
6 slices of fresh jalapeno pepper
6 slices of fresh lime
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Wash and pat dry the chicken, trimming off any fat. Slick a baking pan with a little olive oil. Place chicken breasts on the pan, and brush 1 tbs. of grainy mustard on the top of each. Lightly salt them and place 2 jalapeno slices on top of each. Then cover each jalapeno slice with a lime slice. Roast for 15 – 22 minutes, until the thickest part registers 155 – 160 degrees. Remove to a platter and let rest for 5 – 8 minutes. Lightly drizzle good quality extra virgin olive oil on top and serve.

SQUASH WITH TAMARIND CONCENTRATE – serves 4

2 squash – I zucchini and 1 yellow
4 tsp. tamarind concentrate
Salt
Olive oil

Wash and trim ends of squash. Cut lengthwise and score with crosshatching. Paint one tsp. of tamarind concentrate on each half and salt lightly. Roast at 475 degrees for 25 minutes or until crisp tender. Remove to a serving plate and lightly drizzle olive oil on top and serve.

I served with this with brown rice pasta topped with some pesto sauce I had taken out of the freezer yesterday along with some farmer’s market sunny gold tomatoes, sliced in half. It was yummy – a dinner my husband talked about again this morning!

Eleven pounds of tomatoes!

August 19, 2012 by Mary Frances 2 Comments

I have my work cut out for me today. Ethel (our farmer friend) convinced me to buy 11 pounds of her San Marzano tomatoes yesterday – and I did! So I am busy canning some and slowly oven drying the rest. I will give you those recipes later this week. Meanwhile the tomato smell is literally intoxicating, it smells so good. We will have this summer tomato freshness through some of the winter, but right now, I gotta get back to work!

My basil is also sky high – got to make pesto tonight!

Pesto!!

July 15, 2012 by Mary Frances 7 Comments

I had a dinner party this past Wednesday night that was so much fun. One of my senior designers who worked for me years ago, I think back in the late 80’s, was in town and got in touch. She now lives in Singapore. She connected with another former designer and I got in touch with Carl, who was the second person I ever hired for the firm in the early 80’s. So with other friends, we were 8 people in total and three were past employees of PM+CO! It was just great catching up. Linda is a vegetarian and I wanted to make sure the whole meal was amassed with local farm vegetables from upstate, to bring great country flavors to a NYC dinner party. So I started with a salad of farm lettuce and arugula from my garden, topped with roasted beets, Coach Farms goat cheese, toasted pine nuts and a sherry vinaigrette. I then roasted two huge trays of vegetables – yellow squash, zucchini, Portobello mushrooms, eggplant, Vidalia onions, smashed whole garlic cloves (from Ethel’s garden), red, and orange peppers and baby turnips – with Greek olive oil and French grey salt. I made a mass of steamed Jasmine rice, folded in Goya black beans (for protein) and for the non-vegetarians, I pan roasted 2 whole chickens seasoned with salt, pepper and Garam Masala. It was all really simple. I also had made some basil pesto the night before from basil in my garden, picked on Monday. I decided to put some of that in a bowl and people spooned it on everything and even took some home! I was originally going to fold the pesto into the rice and beans but after taking a survey from everyone during the cocktail hour, we decided this was the way to go. A dollop on top on the vegetables was divine. Barbara asked for a batch as her Christmas present and Mary Beth took a container full home. People just wanted to eat it straight. I really never dreamed of that for pesto. I just wanted to serve it because I had just made a bunch and with our youngest being in Europe, we couldn’t possibly eat it all, although pesto does freeze quite well.

We finished the meal with a rhubarb crisp (really quick and easy to make) topped with a little scoop of vanilla ice cream. Not bad for a weeknight dinner party!

Here is the pesto recipe. Remember, it’s all about the quality of the ingredients for any dish you make, so use the very best you can.

PESTO
-makes about 3 cups

3 cups of packed basil leaves, thoroughly washed and dried
6 – 7 large cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups Greek extra virgin olive oil (I like Athena brand)
1 1/2 cups walnuts
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan (Reggiano) cheese
2/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano (Locatelli) cheese
salt
pepper

In a large food processor, combine basil, garlic and walnuts. Process to make a near paste. Scrape bowl. With machine on, slowly drizzle in olive oil. Scrape bowl again. Add the cheeses, a big pinch of salt and 20 grinds on fresh pepper. Process again, taste and add more salt, if necessary, to your liking.

A one cup portion is enough to coat 1 lb. of dried pasta, cooked. I like it on fusilli best as it can get in all the little groves for maximum coverage and flavor.

This freezes well.

Basil in my garden.

Pesto pasta and tomatoes in a white bowl.

Dinner with our good friend, Nancy, on Saturday, started with this course.