At this week’s pick-up, I got one head of romaine, one bunch of kale, one bunch of green chard, one bok choy, one bundle of scallions, one bundle of French breakfast radishes, one pot of oregano and thyme, four garlic scapes, two kohlrabis, and a quart of strawberries.

On the first night, I decided to make the kale for dinner, since I had made it before.В I wanted to tackle the garlic scapes, too, mostly because I wasn’t sure how long they’d keep. When I them, I accidentally typed in “garlic scrapes,” but my mistake took me to aВ blog, called the Gorham Garden, that had a post about “garlic scrapes” — which included a recipe for nut-free pesto. (I’m allergic to nuts, so I was very excited to find a pesto recipe that didn’t call for pine nuts or walnuts.) Another quick Google search — this time spelling “scapes” correctly — informed me that garlic scapes are best used in pesto. That solidified it. I decided to make pesto sauce, with the recipe I found on the Gorham Garden blog, and use it on a simple portobello-tomato-ciabatta sandwich with a side of kale for dinner.

Pesto ingredients: four garlic scapes, basil leaves, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano.

I chopped the scapes into small pieces and pureed them in a food processor. Then, I added the basil, pureed it, put in the oil and cheese, and pureed the mixture again. Here’s a shot of the finished pesto:

Next, I washed the kale and chopped the leaves without removing the stems. Riffing off this Food Network recipe, I sauteed the kale with one large garlic clove, steamed it for a few minutes, and added a tablespoon of sherry vinegar and a dash of sea salt and pepper.

Here are two shots of the complete meal. The kale was slightly sweet and very tender. The scapes gave the pesto more of a spicy kick than regular pesto has. I was very pleased with my first CSA meal!В

Roasted portobello with sliced tomato and pesto on kalamata olive ciabatta.

Yesterday, my sister and I decided to use the bok choy in a simple stir fry. (We used this NYT recipe as a guide, but omitted the red pepper and chili paste.) She’s more talented in the kitchen than I am, so she browned the tofu:

After the tofu was cooked, we threw in some oil, one minced garlic clove, and a teaspoon of grated ginger into the wok. Once the garlic was simmering, we added the chopped bok choy and a bit of water. When most of the water was cooked out, we added the tofu, some soy sauce and sprinkled chopped scallions over the mixture. We served the tofu and bok choy over buckwheat noodles with a few splashes of Sriracha. Mmm…