So I'm having breakfast (that Ronnybrook yogurt I said I was going to make raita with -- lies, all lies I tell you! avec cranberry pecan granola and a couple of apricots I just picked up from the greenmarket), and making the final decisions about what to have for dinner tonight. This is going to be a collaboration between Ranbir and I, which is a first. Because Sara Does Not Cook For Dinner Parties. Well, Sara does, except Ranbir gets territorial so she ends up not. Tonight he will be whipping up that Indian Turnip Thing I talked about a while back, and hopefully some black daal (but it might be yellow daal after all, we'll see).
I am responsible for:
Sea Bass fillets with a Goan masala rub (the masala is left over from a previous dinner party, so don't give me that much credit)
More of that lovely sauteed chard, which is going in with beet greens and spinach this time to make sort of a halfassed gora saag. Which would be kind of hilarious to see this dish called on a menu, actually.
Basil Sorbet
Homemade Nimbu Pani (sort of an Indian limeade or lime soda)
Aside from the need to juice thirteen lemons and make a simple syrup for the nimbu pani and sorbet, this looks way more ambitious on paper than it really is. I have an ice cream machine which will do most of the work on the sorbet, and both the sea bass and halfass gora saag will take all of 10 minutes.
There also may be a salad (we might be having a sixth dinner guest), and if these apricots last we will also have that. And several bottles of white and rose. And some sparkling orangeade if the nimbu pani doesn't last (two of our guests are nondrinkers).
Bon appetit! Recipes to come after I actually make them...
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
CSA Week 3 -- July 3, 2008
Oh, dear.
I think I'm sensing a pattern, here. I have to say that when Ranbir and I decided to join the CSA this year, I thought our biggest hurdle would be cooking and eating so many fresh vegetables. I was also a little worried about getting stuff we weren't used to eating or didn't like very much. I did not, however, think to worry about the issue of repetition.
So far we seem to be getting a lot of the same stuff every week. I feel like if I see another pile of turnips I might scream. My love of leafy greens is starting to wear thin. I actually think that, from here on out, I might stop taking our allotment of lettuce, because it's just too goddamn much. We cannot eat this much lettuce fresh, and I can't come up with anything else to do with it or any way of preserving it for the future.
Anyway, here's what we got: a head of lettuce and yet another huge mess o' salad mix (and the especially annoying thing is that we're having friends to dinner tomorrow night and I don't think we have room for salad on the menu for all the turnips, cooked greens, etc. we're shoving down their throats), the aforementioned turnips and bok choi, green onions, purple basil, swiss chard.
And beets. Blech. I have ideas for the beet greens (and cheated by picking out a bunch with lots of lovely greens and very small roots), but beets? Oh, I was really hoping we wouldn't be stuck with any beets until at least the fall. However two of our dinner guests are beet lovers, so we can send the 5 paltry little baby beet roots home with them. Maybe the other dinner guest will take some lettuce?
Stay tuned for my dinner party menu!
PS - made the garlic scape pesto again, probably for the last time this year because we didn't get any more this week. And It Was Awesome. Again. That is all.
I think I'm sensing a pattern, here. I have to say that when Ranbir and I decided to join the CSA this year, I thought our biggest hurdle would be cooking and eating so many fresh vegetables. I was also a little worried about getting stuff we weren't used to eating or didn't like very much. I did not, however, think to worry about the issue of repetition.
So far we seem to be getting a lot of the same stuff every week. I feel like if I see another pile of turnips I might scream. My love of leafy greens is starting to wear thin. I actually think that, from here on out, I might stop taking our allotment of lettuce, because it's just too goddamn much. We cannot eat this much lettuce fresh, and I can't come up with anything else to do with it or any way of preserving it for the future.
Anyway, here's what we got: a head of lettuce and yet another huge mess o' salad mix (and the especially annoying thing is that we're having friends to dinner tomorrow night and I don't think we have room for salad on the menu for all the turnips, cooked greens, etc. we're shoving down their throats), the aforementioned turnips and bok choi, green onions, purple basil, swiss chard.
And beets. Blech. I have ideas for the beet greens (and cheated by picking out a bunch with lots of lovely greens and very small roots), but beets? Oh, I was really hoping we wouldn't be stuck with any beets until at least the fall. However two of our dinner guests are beet lovers, so we can send the 5 paltry little baby beet roots home with them. Maybe the other dinner guest will take some lettuce?
Stay tuned for my dinner party menu!
PS - made the garlic scape pesto again, probably for the last time this year because we didn't get any more this week. And It Was Awesome. Again. That is all.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Recipe 2.3 -- Sauteed Chard
This is seriously the most stupid obvious easy recipe ever. Man, I can't believe I ever said I didn't know how to cook -- so many of the recipes I'm experimenting with keep turning out to be super easy and nothing I couldn't handle.
BTW, CSA Week 2 update: Ranbir made a frittata this morning that incorporated the rest of the green onions, so yay, we can also cross that off our list. Now we only have the bok choi, radishes, turnips, and the rest of the lettuce to finish off. And I think I finally have a plan for the radishes; I picked up a quart of Ronnybrook yogurt at the greenmarket, with which I'm going to make a radish raita to go with the Indian turnip thing Ranbir is going to make.
OK, on to the chard recipe.
Ingredients
Chard. Duh. I put in the big hunk we got from the CSA, and it cooked down to nothing. I was really happy I'd incorporated it into a big meal with scallops, potatoes, and salad because otherwise we'd have gone seriously hungry.
Olive oil. Duh again. I will restate that we have a big cruet of olive oil next to the stove. It's pretty much my go-to cooking oil, more because I'm lazy than anything else.
Garlic. I picked up some "young garlic" at the greenmarket yesterday. The outer skins are less papery, which makes it a little harder to work with. It's also a little milder than full-grown garlic, so I used a whole head, which had 6-8 big cloves (young garlic is a lot smaller than mature garlic, too).
Salt, Pepper, and Crushed Red Pepper Flakes. I think of those flakes as more of a thing to put on pizza, rather than something to cook with, but apparently I'm wrong about that.
The Rest Of The Recipe
Wash the chard and remove the big white stems. Chop loosely. Peel and chop the garlic.
Coat the bottom of a pan in oil and put over medium heat. Add garlic, pepper, and red pepper flakes. When the oil is warm, add the chard and salt liberally. Stir it up a little and cover the pan. Check on it after 5-10 minutes and it should be nicely wilted. Stir again and give it another minute or so just to make sure it's definitely done. When it starts to look like cooked greens are supposed to look, it's really done and ready to eat. Make sure to get lots of garlic and liquid in there when you plate it.
BTW, CSA Week 2 update: Ranbir made a frittata this morning that incorporated the rest of the green onions, so yay, we can also cross that off our list. Now we only have the bok choi, radishes, turnips, and the rest of the lettuce to finish off. And I think I finally have a plan for the radishes; I picked up a quart of Ronnybrook yogurt at the greenmarket, with which I'm going to make a radish raita to go with the Indian turnip thing Ranbir is going to make.
OK, on to the chard recipe.
Ingredients
Chard. Duh. I put in the big hunk we got from the CSA, and it cooked down to nothing. I was really happy I'd incorporated it into a big meal with scallops, potatoes, and salad because otherwise we'd have gone seriously hungry.
Olive oil. Duh again. I will restate that we have a big cruet of olive oil next to the stove. It's pretty much my go-to cooking oil, more because I'm lazy than anything else.
Garlic. I picked up some "young garlic" at the greenmarket yesterday. The outer skins are less papery, which makes it a little harder to work with. It's also a little milder than full-grown garlic, so I used a whole head, which had 6-8 big cloves (young garlic is a lot smaller than mature garlic, too).
Salt, Pepper, and Crushed Red Pepper Flakes. I think of those flakes as more of a thing to put on pizza, rather than something to cook with, but apparently I'm wrong about that.
The Rest Of The Recipe
Wash the chard and remove the big white stems. Chop loosely. Peel and chop the garlic.
Coat the bottom of a pan in oil and put over medium heat. Add garlic, pepper, and red pepper flakes. When the oil is warm, add the chard and salt liberally. Stir it up a little and cover the pan. Check on it after 5-10 minutes and it should be nicely wilted. Stir again and give it another minute or so just to make sure it's definitely done. When it starts to look like cooked greens are supposed to look, it's really done and ready to eat. Make sure to get lots of garlic and liquid in there when you plate it.
Recipe 2.2 -- Scallops Meuniere Avec Noix
In English, that would be scallops in brown butter sauce with walnuts
I kinda invented this recipe. I was picking up a few things at the greenmarket yesterday and decided it was time to dip into some local seafood. It's expensive, but to be honest it's cheaper than going out to dinner, and it's not like we eat like this every night. After deciding on about half a pound of scallops (about 20 in all), I happened by the booth where people from the Greenmarkets organization have free samples, try out recipes, and usually have sheets of more recipes. They happened to have a recipe sheet for something called "skate wings grenobloise", which is basically skate wings meuniere with vinegar and capers. I didn't have any capers, but I was inspired... I also wanted to send a bit of a shout-out to Galatoire's and one of my favorite dishes there, trout meuniere amandine.
Not to mention the opportunity not only to practice cooking something that is not a one-pot vegetarian stew, and also to test out one of those Classic French Sauces that are basically greek to me.
I have to say that, despite my general cluelessness, this recipe came out AWESOME. Even the sauce. This might be one of the best things I have ever cooked. Almost even better than the garlic scape pesto.
Ingredients:
20 east coast scallops. So I just found out that mid-atlantic scallops are overfished and unsustainable. This makes me sad, because scallops rock. I've decided to believe that these particular scallops were sustainably harvested, even though I know that's bullshit. I've got to chat up the people at the fish booth and find out more about this next time. I used scallops because I like them and they're relatively cheap, but obviously you could make a similar dish with just about any seafood. NOTE: these scallops were pretty small, probably half the size of the ones you get in fancy restaurants. 10 per person is fine as a main course.
1/2 cup of flour, though this ended up being at least twice as much as I needed
Olive oil
Half a stick of butter
The juice of 2 lemons -- this also ended up being way more than I needed. But then one might not have been enough.
A couple or three green onions, chopped of course
A smallish handful of chopped walnuts
Salt and Pepper
I was supposed to put parsley in, but I forgot. You, however, have the power to remember.
The Rest Of The Recipe:
Rinse the scallops and cut off the ligaments (dead easy). Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour. I always assumed this would be really hard, because it seems involved when someone does it on a cooking show, but it was hella simple. And fun.
Coat the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil and sautee the scallops. This takes no time at all; they cook up really easily and barely even have to be flipped. If I had to make it scientific I'd say 2 minutes or so per side, if that.
When the scallops are done, remove to a side plate so that you can start the sauce. I put a good amount of lemon juice on the scallops here.
Dump out any remaining olive oil and put the pan back over the heat. Add the half stick of butter and let it go until it starts to froth up. Add your green onions and parsley (because you totally remembered it) and let it go for another little while, but obviously don't let it burn or anything. Add some walnuts if you like -- I used them because I happened to have some left over from the pesto, but obviously chopped pecans would rock, or you could do more of a Galatoire's homage and use the original sliced almonds. Also some more lemon juice, yeah, put some of that in there, too. Turn off the heat and pour your sauce over the scallops. Plate up and enjoy!
I kinda invented this recipe. I was picking up a few things at the greenmarket yesterday and decided it was time to dip into some local seafood. It's expensive, but to be honest it's cheaper than going out to dinner, and it's not like we eat like this every night. After deciding on about half a pound of scallops (about 20 in all), I happened by the booth where people from the Greenmarkets organization have free samples, try out recipes, and usually have sheets of more recipes. They happened to have a recipe sheet for something called "skate wings grenobloise", which is basically skate wings meuniere with vinegar and capers. I didn't have any capers, but I was inspired... I also wanted to send a bit of a shout-out to Galatoire's and one of my favorite dishes there, trout meuniere amandine.
Not to mention the opportunity not only to practice cooking something that is not a one-pot vegetarian stew, and also to test out one of those Classic French Sauces that are basically greek to me.
I have to say that, despite my general cluelessness, this recipe came out AWESOME. Even the sauce. This might be one of the best things I have ever cooked. Almost even better than the garlic scape pesto.
Ingredients:
20 east coast scallops. So I just found out that mid-atlantic scallops are overfished and unsustainable. This makes me sad, because scallops rock. I've decided to believe that these particular scallops were sustainably harvested, even though I know that's bullshit. I've got to chat up the people at the fish booth and find out more about this next time. I used scallops because I like them and they're relatively cheap, but obviously you could make a similar dish with just about any seafood. NOTE: these scallops were pretty small, probably half the size of the ones you get in fancy restaurants. 10 per person is fine as a main course.
1/2 cup of flour, though this ended up being at least twice as much as I needed
Olive oil
Half a stick of butter
The juice of 2 lemons -- this also ended up being way more than I needed. But then one might not have been enough.
A couple or three green onions, chopped of course
A smallish handful of chopped walnuts
Salt and Pepper
I was supposed to put parsley in, but I forgot. You, however, have the power to remember.
The Rest Of The Recipe:
Rinse the scallops and cut off the ligaments (dead easy). Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour. I always assumed this would be really hard, because it seems involved when someone does it on a cooking show, but it was hella simple. And fun.
Coat the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil and sautee the scallops. This takes no time at all; they cook up really easily and barely even have to be flipped. If I had to make it scientific I'd say 2 minutes or so per side, if that.
When the scallops are done, remove to a side plate so that you can start the sauce. I put a good amount of lemon juice on the scallops here.
Dump out any remaining olive oil and put the pan back over the heat. Add the half stick of butter and let it go until it starts to froth up. Add your green onions and parsley (because you totally remembered it) and let it go for another little while, but obviously don't let it burn or anything. Add some walnuts if you like -- I used them because I happened to have some left over from the pesto, but obviously chopped pecans would rock, or you could do more of a Galatoire's homage and use the original sliced almonds. Also some more lemon juice, yeah, put some of that in there, too. Turn off the heat and pour your sauce over the scallops. Plate up and enjoy!
Recipe 2.1 -- Orangette's Rustic Hasselback Potatoes
This didn't turn out nearly as well as I hoped it would, though it was still totally edible. Simple roast potatoes would have been easier and at least as tasty. But it was a good effort, and one thing I need to work on to combat the cucinaphobia is giving my technique a workout.
Ingredients:
Medium-to-biggish potatoes. I used red ones, bigger than those little baby ones but probably not as big as necessary. I made 4, for 2 people. I got them at the greenmarket, which means yay, eating local rocks!
Olive oil, copious amounts of
Something yummy to stick into the crevices. I used garlic, green onion, and bay leaves. The garlic and green onion were really difficult to get in there, though, so halfway through I gave up and just did bay leaves. You could obviously use just about any herb or aromatic you can get in there.
The Rest Of The Recipe
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Wash and de-grunge-ify your potatoes, but don't peel them. Place a potato inside a wooden spoon and cut slits into the potato short-ways from one end of the potato to the other. As if to make the potato fan out. The wooden spoon should prevent your knife from going too far and just slicing the potatoes, but be careful because this didn't work that well for me.
Slide your herbs and/or aromatics into the slits. If you use bay leaves, put one whole leaf into a center slit. This was the really hard part for me, possibly because my potatoes were just too small.
Place potatoes on a cookie sheet and slather liberally with olive oil. Try to get some of the oil down into the crevices.
Put in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, just like making baked potatoes.
Courtesy of Orangette
Ingredients:
Medium-to-biggish potatoes. I used red ones, bigger than those little baby ones but probably not as big as necessary. I made 4, for 2 people. I got them at the greenmarket, which means yay, eating local rocks!
Olive oil, copious amounts of
Something yummy to stick into the crevices. I used garlic, green onion, and bay leaves. The garlic and green onion were really difficult to get in there, though, so halfway through I gave up and just did bay leaves. You could obviously use just about any herb or aromatic you can get in there.
The Rest Of The Recipe
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Wash and de-grunge-ify your potatoes, but don't peel them. Place a potato inside a wooden spoon and cut slits into the potato short-ways from one end of the potato to the other. As if to make the potato fan out. The wooden spoon should prevent your knife from going too far and just slicing the potatoes, but be careful because this didn't work that well for me.
Slide your herbs and/or aromatics into the slits. If you use bay leaves, put one whole leaf into a center slit. This was the really hard part for me, possibly because my potatoes were just too small.
Place potatoes on a cookie sheet and slather liberally with olive oil. Try to get some of the oil down into the crevices.
Put in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, just like making baked potatoes.
Courtesy of Orangette
CSA Pickup Numero Dos - June 26, 2008
This week we got pretty much the same vegetables, with a little variation. More garlic scapes (yeah!), 2 heads of lettuce (red leaf and green leaf, I think? Can't be bothered to go over to the fridge and look), more radishes, more bok choy, turnips without their tops, chard, green onions, and a parsley plant.
The radishes are really piling up, and I have to figure out something to do with them besides sending furious hints in Ranbir's general direction. Ranbir likes radishes. I don't, or at least I don't love them enough to do any real research on what we should do with them. Especially since I know Ranbir will just eat them raw if I send enough hints in his general direction.
So far the only thing I have cooked with our CSA vegetables is some lovely sauteed chard. Though we have also dipped into the lettuces for Yet Another Fricken Salad (when will it end?) -- this time I remembered to get other vegetables to put on the salad, though, so at least it wasn't just piles of lettuce.
Since I was lucky enough to get up Saturday morning and realize we needed to go grocery shopping, and then realize that most of the stuff on our list could be found at the greenmarket, I was able to supplement our CSA stash with a wider selection of local and organic food. Which ultimately resulted in my first attempt at a Locavore Meal. Wherein I cooked:
Recipe 2.1 - Rustic Hasselbeck Potatoes (via Orangette)
Recipe 2.2 - Scallops Meuniere Avec Noix (I actually kind of made this recipe up!)
Recipe 2.3 - The Aforementioned Sauteed Chard (via googling "chard" and finding this)
I'm also planning on doing more of the garlic scape pesto, this time possibly with some parsley added in. I've tossed the turnips into Ranbir's court this time. I have no idea how to finish off the green onions, aside from as an ingredient in other dishes. So I'm working on that.
Recipes to come!
The radishes are really piling up, and I have to figure out something to do with them besides sending furious hints in Ranbir's general direction. Ranbir likes radishes. I don't, or at least I don't love them enough to do any real research on what we should do with them. Especially since I know Ranbir will just eat them raw if I send enough hints in his general direction.
So far the only thing I have cooked with our CSA vegetables is some lovely sauteed chard. Though we have also dipped into the lettuces for Yet Another Fricken Salad (when will it end?) -- this time I remembered to get other vegetables to put on the salad, though, so at least it wasn't just piles of lettuce.
Since I was lucky enough to get up Saturday morning and realize we needed to go grocery shopping, and then realize that most of the stuff on our list could be found at the greenmarket, I was able to supplement our CSA stash with a wider selection of local and organic food. Which ultimately resulted in my first attempt at a Locavore Meal. Wherein I cooked:
Recipe 2.1 - Rustic Hasselbeck Potatoes (via Orangette)
Recipe 2.2 - Scallops Meuniere Avec Noix (I actually kind of made this recipe up!)
Recipe 2.3 - The Aforementioned Sauteed Chard (via googling "chard" and finding this)
I'm also planning on doing more of the garlic scape pesto, this time possibly with some parsley added in. I've tossed the turnips into Ranbir's court this time. I have no idea how to finish off the green onions, aside from as an ingredient in other dishes. So I'm working on that.
Recipes to come!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Recipe 1.2 -- Garlic Scape And Walnut Pesto
Garlic scapes are a lovely little seasonal veggie bonus - the very first shoots the garlic bulb sends up as it grows. They're trimmed off early in the process to pave the way for another garlic growth spurt and are a staple of CSA's and farmers' markets everywhere (man, that sentence is an apostrophe disaster, apologies, grammar nerds). Here in the Northeast, we get them at the end of June. I don't think they're generally available at your neighborhood supermarket, because they're really just a byproduct of the garlic farming process.
I first encountered scapes at our very first CSA pickup and had never heard of them before. Which of course required prompt googling. Whereupon I found a lovely explanation and recipe via the Washington Post's food blog. It turns out there are plenty of things you can do with a garlic scape, but most of them require more than the paltry 4 that came from the CSA this week. For instance, people just love them sauteed in a little lemon a la asparagus or broccoli rabe (something else I would love to get from the CSA but so far no sign of it - why do we get all the weird vegetables, and none of the ones I happen to be salivating over?). But the idea of two people sitting down to a meal of two scapes apiece was depressing, and I wanted to flex my culinary muscles.
So I settled on a pesto. I'm addicted to pesto, but so far in my life I've mainly known it to come out of a jar. Which is sad, when you think about it. I've also pretty much only had the basil and pine nut variety. So this recipe intrigued me. As a first week gimme bonus, it turns out that pesto is dead easy to make and takes all of 5 minutes.
Ingredients:
4 garlic scapes (feel free to double or triple this if you get your hands on a ton of scapes, but 4 was plenty for a meal for 2 or 3, maybe even 4 servings as a side or piatti primi sort of thing)
About 3/8 of a cup of chopped walnuts. Eyeballed of course; if I were accomplished enough to measure out three eighths of a cup I could hardly call myself cucinaphobic. If I make this again, though, I might add more walnuts.
Enough olive oil to get the job done
Heaps and heaps of parmigiano reggiano, shredded
Salt? I might have also added salt.
The Rest Of The Recipe:
Trim off the very top flower-bud end of the scapes, and chop them into quarter-inch segments, kind of like you're chopping green onions. Except way harder, because the scapes are all twisty. You're probably going to want to do it one at a time. Which made the fact that I only got 4 kind of nice -- this was by far the longest and most involved part of the recipe.
Throw the scapes and walnuts into your cuisinart (you have one of those, right?) and pulse until everything is sort of a dry paste. Start adding oil. Because I was halving the original recipe, I really eyeballed it and have no idea how much I ended up using. I just drizzled and pulsed, drizzled and pulsed, till it started resembling the pesto we all know and love. It will turn a lovely chartreuse color, and look like springtime personified. When you're happy with the amount of oil, you can plop the mixture into a bowl and start adding cheese. I also eyeballed this because I am a cheese freak and knew I probably wouldn't be satisfied with the amount in the recipe. Also I really can't be bothered to measure out exact portions of grated cheese. Mix the cheese in well with a wooden spoon.
From here you can serve it over pasta right away, though it will keep in a jar or tupperware or something in the fridge for a while, with a little extra oil drizzled over the top so it doesn't dry out. You can apparently freeze it at the pre-cheese stage -- I'm thinking about doing that next time, since scapes are so rare and seasonal. 4 scapes makes maybe 4 or 5 ounces of pesto, depending on walnut and cheese quantities.
The taste is impossible to describe. I guess I'd say that garlic scapes are to garlic as scallions/green onions are to onion. Sort of mild and green and fresh tasting, and not strong at all. I served it with penne, even more cheese, a little chopped parsley, and fresh pepper. It. Was. Outrageously. Good.
I first encountered scapes at our very first CSA pickup and had never heard of them before. Which of course required prompt googling. Whereupon I found a lovely explanation and recipe via the Washington Post's food blog. It turns out there are plenty of things you can do with a garlic scape, but most of them require more than the paltry 4 that came from the CSA this week. For instance, people just love them sauteed in a little lemon a la asparagus or broccoli rabe (something else I would love to get from the CSA but so far no sign of it - why do we get all the weird vegetables, and none of the ones I happen to be salivating over?). But the idea of two people sitting down to a meal of two scapes apiece was depressing, and I wanted to flex my culinary muscles.
So I settled on a pesto. I'm addicted to pesto, but so far in my life I've mainly known it to come out of a jar. Which is sad, when you think about it. I've also pretty much only had the basil and pine nut variety. So this recipe intrigued me. As a first week gimme bonus, it turns out that pesto is dead easy to make and takes all of 5 minutes.
Ingredients:
4 garlic scapes (feel free to double or triple this if you get your hands on a ton of scapes, but 4 was plenty for a meal for 2 or 3, maybe even 4 servings as a side or piatti primi sort of thing)
About 3/8 of a cup of chopped walnuts. Eyeballed of course; if I were accomplished enough to measure out three eighths of a cup I could hardly call myself cucinaphobic. If I make this again, though, I might add more walnuts.
Enough olive oil to get the job done
Heaps and heaps of parmigiano reggiano, shredded
Salt? I might have also added salt.
The Rest Of The Recipe:
Trim off the very top flower-bud end of the scapes, and chop them into quarter-inch segments, kind of like you're chopping green onions. Except way harder, because the scapes are all twisty. You're probably going to want to do it one at a time. Which made the fact that I only got 4 kind of nice -- this was by far the longest and most involved part of the recipe.
Throw the scapes and walnuts into your cuisinart (you have one of those, right?) and pulse until everything is sort of a dry paste. Start adding oil. Because I was halving the original recipe, I really eyeballed it and have no idea how much I ended up using. I just drizzled and pulsed, drizzled and pulsed, till it started resembling the pesto we all know and love. It will turn a lovely chartreuse color, and look like springtime personified. When you're happy with the amount of oil, you can plop the mixture into a bowl and start adding cheese. I also eyeballed this because I am a cheese freak and knew I probably wouldn't be satisfied with the amount in the recipe. Also I really can't be bothered to measure out exact portions of grated cheese. Mix the cheese in well with a wooden spoon.
From here you can serve it over pasta right away, though it will keep in a jar or tupperware or something in the fridge for a while, with a little extra oil drizzled over the top so it doesn't dry out. You can apparently freeze it at the pre-cheese stage -- I'm thinking about doing that next time, since scapes are so rare and seasonal. 4 scapes makes maybe 4 or 5 ounces of pesto, depending on walnut and cheese quantities.
The taste is impossible to describe. I guess I'd say that garlic scapes are to garlic as scallions/green onions are to onion. Sort of mild and green and fresh tasting, and not strong at all. I served it with penne, even more cheese, a little chopped parsley, and fresh pepper. It. Was. Outrageously. Good.
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