Garlic Scape, Meet Bacon

Garlic scapes were crowding the crisper, so we wanted to find a good way to put them to use. I had a recipe for an orzo salad that originally called for garlic and green onions. Seemed to me that the garlic scapes would fill in nicely. I was also lacking some arugula and radicchio, so I made use of mustard greens, and a few pieces of bacon we had bought for BLTs. There was some parmesan cheese in the recipe, and I made do with gruyere from the fridge. There were also some toasted pine nuts to finish it off (which we picked up after we had the idea for this salad).


It worked out pretty well, and was good tasting, but I would make a couple of changes in the future. With three cups of orzo, one half cup of olive oil was called for in the original recipe. The bacon, plus the gruyere, made it just too oily. I would cut the olive oil at least in half. The gruyere was also just too mild for the combination. I couldn't really taste it at all.

Using an existing recipe as a guide, and our vegetables to lead us, we have been able to make some good dishes without worrying about exact recipes. I think this will be a common trend in how we work with our CSA.