Recently I harvested my garlic scapes. Garlic scapes are the green curly shoots that grow from hard-necked garlic plants. They are removed so the garlic plants will concentrate their growth energy into the bulbs. Garlic scapes can be used for many things especially garlic scape pickles!
Garlic scapes can be used to make garlic scape pesto.
They are also good chopped up and added to a salad or used as a pizza topping. Have you ever tried Garlic Scape Scampi? Just delicious! Did you know you can also use them to make pickles?
This is another recipe from my favorite book, Preserving By The Pint by Marisa McClellan. I love the recipes because they are all geared toward small batch preserving, perfect for our household of two!
This recipe reminds me of a crisp garlicky dilly bean!
Garlic Scape Pickles
Ingredients:
8 ounces of garlic scapes
¾ cup cider vinegar
1 Tbsp pickling salt
1 tsp dill seeds
½ tsp black peppercorns
½ tsp red chili flakes
Directions:
Prepare your boiling water bath and 2 pint jars and two lids according to the directions that came with your canner.
Combine the vinegar, ¾ cup water and the pickling salt in a medium pot and bring to a boil.
Cut your scapes into two inch segments. Add them to the pot of brine and stir for 30 seconds. Removed the pot from the heat. Divide the spices up evenly between the two jars and using a funnel add the scapes to each jar. Ladle the brine over the scapes leaving ½ inch headspace. Wipe the rims and apply the lids and process in your water bath canner for 10 minutes.
Remove the jars from the canner and let cool before storing in your pantry. Let these pickles cure for at least a week before eating.
Note: The recipe said to use jelly jars to can the pickles, in which case you would get two jars, I used a pint jar and got one jar!
Nancy on the Home Front 