Hi my dears, it has been too long. Let’s promise to never be apart again! Ok, I guess it is my fault that we haven’t seen each other in so long. I find myself in the kitchen almost every night but truth be told I am usually too exhausted at the end of cooking to even think about blogging my delicious meals. I feel bad about it, I sometimes go to bed feeling like I have neglected you. Don’t you want to know what I am eating every day? I guess you probably don’t really care what I am eating for each meal of the day. Well if you do want to know I can assure you that most days start with…cereal…that was a let down huh?
From this day forward I promise to be true to you. I promise to share more of my culinary experiences on a more frequent basis. I also promise to be more adventurous, just for you. Now you have my word so if I falter you can call me out, its ok I’ll own it.
Over the weekend I decided to spend almost the entire day on Sunday in the kitchen to make it up to you. I was determined to make as much as I could, utilizing as many of our CSA goodies as we could. The hubby was just glad that we didn’t have kale for dinner. I was pretty close to figuring out how to make everything with kale but I guess it’s ok to take a break. Enter the Garlic Scapes…
“WhatTheFudge is that vine doing on your cutting board pepper?” I imagine that is what you are asking yourself right now because that is what I would be saying too. Apparently garlic scapes are a thing and people like them. I had heard of them before but much like fiddleheads I was skeptical of their deliciousness. I often have these food moments when I am like who was the first person to be like “guys, let’s eat this!”, I would have been like “yeah, you first buddy” and hope that they didn’t die before I mustered up enough courage to take bite. In all honesty I wasn’t sure what to do with these scapes but I did some web surfing and found that some have made a pesto with the scapes. So ok pesto it is.
Alright, we have our garlic scape pesto (MMMMmmm garlicky) but what do with these green tomatoes?
I actually ate these raw when they first came in; they are tart and have a mild tomato flavor that I really enjoy. But like most people I actually associate green tomatoes with frying. It just so happened that frying the tomatoes was the best use for this dish as well.
Excellent so we have garlic scape pesto and fried green tomatoes what next?
Bacon!
Avocado!!
Alright, you got me. The bacon did not come in our CSA basket, neither did the avocado but they make an excellent addition to my stack. Commence stack building! The trickiest part is making sure you don’t eat all of the ingredients separately before you finish your stack building.
Fried Green Tomato Stack
Makes 3 Stacks
Ingredients:
3 Medium Green Tomatoes
1 Cup Corn Meal
1 Tsp. Pepper
1 Tsp. Salt
1/2 Tsp.Paprika
1/2 Cup Oil for Frying
3 Tbsp. Butter
1/2 Cup Garlic Scape Pesto (Recipe Below)
6 Strips of Bacon
2 Small Avocados Thinly Sliced
Instructions:
Fry your bacon strips and set aside. I prefer to cook my bacon in the oven. To do this you set up a rack on top of a baking sheet lined with foil. Lay your bacon strips on the rack and cook in an oven pre heated to 375 until it is crisp to your liking. In my book crispy bacon is the best bacon! To make your fried green tomatoes slice your tomatoes so that they are about 1/2 thick. Add your cornmeal to a shallow dish with your seasonings (salt, pepper, paprika). Dredge your tomato slices in the seasoned flour. In a fry pan add your oil and butter and heat until the oil sizzles when a drop of water touches it. Shake off any extra corn meal and fry your tomato slices until golden brown, flipping once. When your tomatoes are fried place on a paper towel to allow the extra oil drain off.
To build your stack place a slice of tomato on the plate, followed by a dollop of garlic scape pesto and slices of avocado top with your bacon cut into bite size pieces. Repeat this process and finish with one last slice of tomato. For extra flair you can drizzle balsamic vinegar or rich olive oil over your stack.
Garlic Scape Pesto
Ingredients:
Garlic Scapes Chopped into 1 inch pieces
Olive Oil
Lemon Juice
Parmesan Cheese
Fresh Ground Pepper
Instructions:
I kind of threw this all in to a food processor and called it a day. There are recipes out there with some variation including adding pine nuts or using different cheese. Feel free to experiment, garlic scapes are powerful so don’t worry about getting enough of the garlic flavor to come across, it will not be an issue!
Those are gorgeous!