Scapes and Sauce from @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here, with a delicious appetizer shared by frequent commenter Karen from Ohio. 

Karen and I both grow garlic every year. In about June in New England (and Ohio), one type of garlic throws up a stalk in the middle of the greenery. The stalk, called a scape, is a weird twisty pointy thing that would very much like to turn into a flower. 

Except forming flowers robs energy from the plant that otherwise would go into making a bigger bulb underground, a process that starts after the summer solstice.

The solution is to clip off the scapes. Bonus? They're not only edible but delicious.

Who wants to waste edible and delicious? Not Karen, and not me. She made this dish for her book group, and I recreated it for my local cross-genre writers' group. It's obviously a good one to share.

Enjoy! And read down for a cool giveaway (entirely unrelated to garlic scapes).

Scapes and Sauce

With credit to Karen for passing along this great way to use garlic scapes. Measurements and adaptations are mine.

 

Ingredients

About 40 garlic scapes (approx)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon coarse salt

¼ cup mayonnaise (Karen used all mayo and no yogurt)

¼ cup whole milk plain yogurt

one lemon

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon minced fresh dill

 

Directions

Preheat broiler with top rack six inches from heating element.

Zest half the lemon while it is whole. 

Halve and squeeze a teaspoon. Set aside.

Trim scapes into 4-5 inch pieces, reserving pointy ends (the skinny parts will roast faster than the rest) for another use. You can't avoid the curly parts, but that's fine.

Toss scape pieces with olive oil and salt. Spread evenly onto a rimmed baking sheet.

Broil four-five minutes. Stir, shake and rotate pan front to back. Broil another four to five minutes or until lightly toasted. 

Turn off oven and remove pan to a cooling rack.

Mix mayonnaise, yogurt, zest, juice, and dill. (Karen made hers with lemon verbena. Lemon thyme might also be good.)

Serve cooled scapes next to bowl of the sauce for dipping. You could also serve scapes as a side dish with a dollop of sauce on each serving. Sauce would be great for dipping any vegetable into.

Thanks to Karen for sharing what she did with scapes for her book group. 

And even though there is no mention of garlic scapes in Murder Uncorked, I'd love to give away three advance copies of it here! After my writer's group ate the scapes and sauce, they all agreed to read and review the book.

Readers: What's your favorite odd farm produce? Be sure to include your email address if you'd like to win one of three ARCs of Murder Uncorked.

🧄📚🍆

My most recent release is A Questionable Death and Other Quaker Midwife Mysteries, out in April 2023.

The next book will be Murder at a Cape Bookstore, releasing in August, 2023.

Following that in quick succession will be "Murderous Mittens" in Christmas Mittens Murder and Murder Uncorked, both featuring my new wine bar manager Cece Barton.

Check out all my writing!

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and sweet cat Martin north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.