Creamy Garlic Scape and Basil Pesto with Grilled Chicken and Vegetables

Up until a few weeks ago I never knew what garlic scapes were. Was I ever missing out. These little greens are sure to turn up frequently in my recipes now. When I first found out about garlic scapes they were used to make pesto. People were going nuts over garlic scape pesto so I had to make some.

I found some scapes at the Truro Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. I picked up some carrots and basil as well. A pack of ferocious slugs attacked my basil plants, reducing them to shredded leaves. They are still alive so I am going to transplant them into hanging baskets. I'd like to see the slugs get at them 6 feet in the air!

What you need:
Pesto:
1 handful of garlic scapes
1 handful of basil leaves
Almonds
Fresh grated parmigiana cheese (no powdery garbage!)
Olive oil
Yogurt
Water
Linguine

Grilled Chicken:
Chicken
Grill

Vegetables:
Yellow Zucchini
Green Pepper
Purple Onion
Red Tomatoes
Orange Carrots

Sorry about not measuring the pesto ingredients. I just used most of what I got at the market.

A keen observer might notice that carrot greens are shown in the above picture but not in the ingredient list. That is because they taste AWFUL. I found some carrot green pesto recipes before I made this pesto so I thought I could throw some in. Nope. The basil was completely overwhelmed, as well as the almonds. I was not impressed. It was still okay, but not as amazing as I had hoped. Round two will not include carrot greens. I repeat, NO CARROT GREENS!

Anyway, chop all the ingredients into small pieces. Maybe 1 inch or less. I didn't do this and it made blending them a real pain. As you can probably imagine, the next step is to blend everything up with a bit of olive oil. Maybe I just have a crummy blender but this was a very lengthy and difficult process. The stuff just wouldn't blend. I didn't want to add water so I used 4 tablespoons of plain yogurt. Still, no blending, even after stirring and pushing the greens around. So I added more olive oil, then more oil, more oil still... After I had used about half of my olive oil I broke down and added about a cup of water, very slowly till the blades caught. Finally! Delicious looking pesto!

Okay, so it doesn't look that great, but it tastes a lot better than it looks. Sorta. Stupid carrot greens, you are the bane of my existence!

Grilling the chicken and veggies is pretty simple.

Heat up the grill, cut veggies, put chicken and veggies on grill.

Of course, this had to go wrong too. As I was filling up my grill with coals I realized I had run out and only had half as many as I would have liked. Not good. The chicken got the prime real estate on the grill so it would cook through. The veggies weren't so lucky. The rest of the grill wasn't hot enough so they cooked but also wilted a bit. they were still pretty good though. I was really surprised with the tomatoes. I don't even like tomatoes but these guys were delicious after being grilled. When the chicken was close to being done I slathered it in pesto. 

There was a bit of collateral damage to a nearby tomato but it turned out okay.

While you grill your veggies you should probably cook the linguine. Boil water, noodles in the water, strain, rinse, pretty standard stuff. Toss the noodles in the pesto and you are good to go! The chicken and vegetables took about 25 minutes I think. You can see when the vegetables are done because they looked cooked.

 

So that's how you make delicious Creamy Garlic Scape and Basil Pesto with Grilled Chicken and Vegetables. Now here is a picture I drew of Tupac as a fire breathing emu.

Hickory Smoked Mac & Cheese

So I've decided to start a blog, a food blog to be specific (probably pretty obvious from the title of the blog). I've been reading a lot of food blogs lately and decided I needed to get in the action. So without further adieu, I bring you Hickory Smoked Mac & Cheese, the first of many tasty creations.

I've been thinking a lot about Mac & Cheese lately. Far too much for any healthy human being. Finally, while in the grocery store yesterday I broke down and bought the necessary ingredients:

Onions

Butter

Mild Italian Sausage

Salt

Pepper

Garlic

Basil

Oregano

Chipotle Hot Sauce

Milk

Balderson Heritage Cheddar, Aged 3 Years

Tre Stelle DELUXE Mozzerella

Lumaconi Noodles

Panko Breadcrumbs

Hickory Wood Chips

You may notice that I did not include any measurements. I don't usually measure anything while cooking unless I'm baking. Also, you may notice there aren't actually and macaroni noodles in this mac & cheese. I opted for lumaconi which is basically a giant shell. I wanted to add some left over sausage bits so I thought they might like to nestle up in the lumaconi beds. I bet now you would probably like to see some pictures of this delicious casserole and maybe learn how to make make it. So lets do that now...

Dice an onion and toss it in a sauce pan with a nice hunk of butter, about 1cm thick.

When it looks and smells delicious add your sausage - I used 4 sausages from a weekend BBQ, garlic - 3 big cloves, basil and oregano - I would have preferred fresh but I haven't had time to get my herb garden from Halifax to Truro yet, salt and pepper to taste - less salt as there is lots in the sausages. Save some sausage bits for later.

Throw in a splash (or eight) of Chipotle Hot Sauce - I used some stuff my Mom got me in Mexico but Super Store has some stuff that is pretty good. The shark sticker is a message to my room mates warning them to not use this hot sauce under any circumstances.

Next you are going to want to add some milk - about 2-3 cups depending on how many noodles you are cooking. Oh, I should mention, you should be boiling the noodles by now. After the milk is nice and warm add the shredded cheeses. I used about 200 grams of each. Depends on how cheesey you want it. The Balderson is pretty strong, but the Mozzarella calms it down a bit. Save some cheese and sausage bits for later.

Let this simmer for a bit while the noodles finish cooking. It should look like this:

Then drain the noodles. I like to wash them a bit too to get the starch off. Add the sauce and try not to eat it all. It's pretty good now but the smoke flavor really kicks it up a notch.

Remember those extra sausage bits and cheese scraps? Mix those in a bowl with hardy pile of bread crumbs or cracker crumbs or some combination. As long as it is crunchy. I used panko bread crumbs since that's what I had in the cupboard.

Ever so gently scoop the noodles and cheese into some kind of fire proof vessel. I used Dollarama foil pans for easy clean up. Fire and cheese do not make for an easy clean up job. Cover the casserole with the cheese, sausage, crumb mix and fire it onto the grill.

Hmm... The grill... I should probably talk about that since it is pretty important... To get a nice smoke flavor you are going to want to use a charcoal BBQ and some hickory wood chips. I like to throw the dry chips right on the hot coals and let them ignite.

Looks good, throw the casserole on and close the lid. This picture is pretty bad. I tried to doctor it up with some photo magic but it was useless. I hope to bet a better camera than my cell phone soon. Maybe for my birthday... *hint hint*

Now put the lid on leaving only the bottom vents open. This smothers the fire and fills the grill with smoke.

After 15 minutes or so I opened the lid a bit to let some oxygen in. This allows the coals to burn better. I was really surprised how toasty the top became. I thought I would have to broil it a bit but it turned out great.

The above photo really doesn't do this dish justice. The topping was really smokey and the innards were gooey with cheesy goodness. I ate a whole casserole for dinner. I'll definitely have to make this again.

I hope you enjoyed this first creation. I can't be sure when I the next idea will come out, but it will be soon as these guys aren't going to last long. So that's how you make delicious Mac & Cheese. Now here is a picture I drew of a cheese with a mustache.