It is scape season! This time of year you will see these twirly green stalks. at farmers markets. They are garlic scapes. The hard-necked garlic puts up a flower umbrel. It starts as a curly-cue. If allowed to grow, it will straighten out. But most farmers want the energy to go into the garlic bulb, so they harvest them and sell them as garlic scapes.
These can be used many ways. They can be cut in bean size lengths and boiled/steamed/sauteed as a veggie or added to a veggie mix. They can be blended/processed with nuts, cheese, and oil and used as a pesto, a dip or a spread with veggies, bread or crackers. And if you love raw garlic, you can eat them straight up. They have a vegetative garlic flavor. Lots of uses.
Here is some garlic scape pesto we made this year. It is more like a spread. We use 1 part olive oil, 2 parts shredded cheese, 2 parts chopped nuts, and 4 parts chopped garlic scapes. We eat it fresh and also freeze it, so we can eat it throughout the winter.
Here are links to other posts about scapes: Garlic Scapes , Garlic Scape Pesto , The Allure of Garlic .