Garlic, Scape and Scape Oil

Another post that is completely unrelated to knitting.

Our friend Todd got us started growing garlic and each fall, Bill devotes one of our three raised beds entirely to garlic. This year it was the front bed and around early- to mid-June, this is what it looked like.

I meant to take a few photos that showed the scape on the plants, but forgot. Then, we needed to get the scape cut and processed before an "off island" trip in early July. After we returned from our trip, I noticed that a few scapes had "escaped" our scissors. So, when we harvested the garlic, I took pictures.

Here a couple shots of the harvested garlic on our deck.

Here's one of the scapes that escaped the scissors.

Scape is actually the garlic's flower stalk. It only comes on "hard neck" garlic. "Soft neck" garlic (what we usually get in the market) doesn't put out scape. In this photo you can see the flower that would eventually emerge if allowed to continue to grow. (Notice the loop, it will come into play below.)

And here you can see what happens to the garlic bulb when the scape continues to grow. (It's that little bitty thing between two de-scaped garlic bulbs.) Basically the energy of the plant goes to the flower instead of the bulb.

Since what we want is garlic bulbs and not flowers, the scapes get the ax. (The scape initially grows straight up before turning a loop. When the loop comes, it's time for de-scaping.)

This is not the end of the scapes though. Our friend Kim (who happens to be married to Todd), advised Bill that these cut off scapes are quite lovely in their own right. Following Kim's advice, Bill puts them in the food processor with a bit of olive oil, processes until finely chopped and we have "scape oil". (It's really more like scape puree than an infused oil.) Here's a jar full of what we call "scape oil" .

Here it is on a spoon.

And here's a jar all ready to go in the freezer.

Hard neck garlic has a shorter shelf life than soft neck garlic. Plus, we don't have the ideal storage conditions. In past years, our garlic supply has become old before we've used it all up. Since the scape oil gets frozen, we usually hold it in reserve to use when we run out of our garlic.

We use scoops of scape when sauteing, in salad dressing and even sometimes as a spread on bread or crackers. It's a lovely color and a fairly mild flavor. (Although recently, Bill mentioned that perhaps eating large amounts of scape should be an "All Play" event. This was after I ate an entire plate of home made bread slices spread with scape oil, topped with cheese and warmed under the broiler. For some reason Bill had not imbibed in this yummy concoction ... and so was well aware of the post-scape-eating aroma emanating from me.)

Before we get to eating up this year's scape oil though, we have quite a supply of garlic to work our way through. (The heads were a little smaller than in year's past, but it's still beautiful and delicious.)

And one more alongside this year's potatoes.

Garlic mashed potatoes anyone?