Tonight's Dinner: Farfalle with Tomato & Garlic Scape Pesto

I got the original for this from a friend on Facebook and her blog Liz The Chef. Her recipe included cream cheese and no garlic scape pesto. My son made it known to me the other day that he really didn't like pesto sauce. When I knew that I was making this tonight, I used my homemade garlic scape pesto and added some basil, garlic, and olive oil, adding some heavy cream and marinara so it didn't taste as pesto-y. It was a hit with all of us. Here is what I did:

Farfalle with Tomato & Creamy Garlic Scape Pesto

1/2 cup Garlic Scape Pesto

Garlic Scape Pesto:

1 half pound bunch garlic scapes*

1/4 cup pumpkin seeds

3 tbsp parmesan cheese, chopped

2 cloves garlic

1 cup fresh basil leaves

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

Sauce:

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup marinara sauce

2 cloves garlic

2 tbsp fresh parsley

For garlic scape pesto: In a small nonstick pan over MED heat, toast pumpkin seeds until light brown. In a small food processor or a Ninja blender with 40 oz container and blade (with 4 blades on it), add scapes, pumpkin seeds, parmesan cheese, garlic, and fresh basil. Grind it up with 4 pulses. Then with pulse button pressed down, drizzle in olive oil, until consistency is smooth (or in a food processor with an S blade, grind it all up.) Set aside.

Meanwhile, place a large pot over HIGH heat. Put in 1 tbsp salt and bring to a boil. Add pasta, and cook according to package (12 minutes for Barilla.)

In a small saucepan, heat garlic scape pesto with the marinara, garlic and heavy cream. Add parsley. Turn off heat.

To serve: Drain pasta, saving 1/4-1/2 cup pasta cooking water. Put farfalle back in the pot, with some of the pasta cooking water and the prepared sauce. Mix together over LOW heat.

Serve, garnished with more parmesan cheese and serve with some Italian bread or some bread sticks.

Risa’s notes:

*Garlic scapes are the greens of the garlic. It has a really mild garlic flavor. It can be found at garlic harvesting time at some farm stands and farmers markets.

Adapted from Liz The Chef blog 6/22/12 – her recipe was Perciatelli with Creamy Pesto and her recipe was a pesto sauce made with some cream cheese and heavy cream, no marinara. My son doesn’t really like pesto sauce so I make it this way so he gets similar flavors and textures and more veggies. He really doesn’t like pasta without red sauce so I added a bit for his tastes.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Source: adapted from Liz the Chef blog 6/22/12

Posted by RisaG 7/6/12