garlic scape goodness

{heart bouquet}

i was thrilled when my friend anne invited me to go out harvesting garlic scapes yesterday!  someone she knows just moved into a house with a big italian garden in the back that is growing out of control.  so out we went, garden shears in hand prepared to tackle the masses.  sadly the crazy amounts of rain we've had recently had trampled the garlic, so the scapes were a bit on the small side but we snipped away happily anyway and still managed to collect a nice bunch.

that was before 10am, and all day after that, all i could think about was what i was going to do with them... pizza?  hummus?  pesto?  i decided to keep it simple because i wanted to enjoy their beauty, so a simple side of grilled garlic scapes it would be!

{garlic scapes}

garlic scapes come up in june (around here at least!) and need to be removed from the plant so that all the growing energy can be spent on the garlic bulb.  there are many gardeneres & farmers that simply toss these beauties onto their compost heap, but i find that such a waste as these are both edible and so delicious!  raw, they have a nice spicy, garlic bite and that flavour mellows out very quickly once exposed to heat.  you may still be able to find some scapes at the market, but the season does run short, so keep your eyes open ...these are a shame to miss out on!

{scapes}

 
all i did for these guys was to drizzle them with extra virgin olive oil, season lightly with sea salt & fresh pepper and grill them for less than 2 minutes in my bbq grill basket.  once cooked, the garlic flavour fades to near nothing and their texture is comparable to green beans.  not only were they delicious, but so pretty!

{scapes, grilled}

{simple beauty}

ps - although these are the milder side of garlic, i just ate almost the entire bunch, in addition to nibbling on a few raw while waiting for the bbq to heat up.  if you see me in the next 24 hours, don't say i didn't warn you.