Of garlic scapes and beet greens

This week's CSA share contained some strange items.

From a quick google search, I learned that garlic scapes can be made into pesto, grilled with five spice powder, used to garnish bruschetta, or even pickled. They also apparently make good bracelets ;). I made mine into a dip, a la the New York Times. (recipe at the end of the post)

Beet greens are supposedly just as versatile--although I did get so excited researching garlic scape recipes that I didn't look up very many beet green recipes. The beets themselves, on the  other hand, made an excellent salad:

For this salad, I drizzled the beets with some balsamic vinegar and oil, and roasted them on 400 for about 45 minutes (my beets were small, so they cooked through quickly). I peeled and chopped them, then returned them to the balsamic reduction and chilled them. The salad is the balsamic roasted beets, toasted walnuts, mandarin orange slices and crumbled bleu cheese, with a balsamic vinaigrette.

I served the salad with garlic scape white bean dip, and a pile of freshly made pitas.

Garlic Scape & White Bean Dip

via The New York Times

1/3 cup sliced garlic scapes (3 to 4)

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or sea salt)

Ground black pepper

1 can (15 ounces) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, more for drizzling.

1. In a food processor, process garlic scapes with lemon juice, salt and pepper until finely chopped. Add cannellini beans and process to a rough purée.

2. With motor running, slowly drizzle olive oil through feed tube and process until fairly smooth. For a more runny dip, add more olive oil. You can also add more salt, pepper and/or lemon juice, if desired.

3. Spread out dip on a plate, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with more salt, and garnish with whatever green leaves you have in your fridge (thyme, in my case ;)).