A Quick Garlic Spear Pasta Recipe

Here's a yummy pasta dish I cooked up last night, recipe requested by Katie* in a comment on my last post, who got garlic spears in her CSA and is wondering what the heck to do with them. (See? This is a full-service blog: you ask for it, we serve it right on up.)

A quick note about garlic spears/scapes: you really can use them as you would asparagus. They have a different flavor, of course, but they do well in any dish where you would use asparagus. Cook them for a little longer than you would asparagus, however: these guys take a little longer to get tender.

Hubby feeling up the garlic spears

Garlic Spear (or Garlic Scape) Pasta with Prosciutto, Shallots, Pine Nuts, and Goat Cheese

• 1 or 2 heads garlic spears, bottom inch or so trimmed, then chopped into ~ 1-inch or so long pieces, leaving the buds at the top intact. (But if the buds have looooong green parts coming off their tops, I chop that too.)
• 1 shallot, finely diced
• As much minced garlic as you and your family can handle (for us, that's a lot)
• 3 thin slices prosciutto (you could easily omit this for a delicious vegetarian meal)
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted in your toaster oven or in your pan -- just until they start to get fragrant
• 1/2 cup to 1 cup good quality dry white wine
• EVOO (extra-virgin olive oil)
• Goat cheese if you'd like it a bit creamy; omit if you don't want a creamy-type pasta
• 1 lb pasta of your choice (we always use organic whole wheat)

While your pasta is cooking, heat your EVOO in your pan on medium-high heat until it starts to shimmer -- add your shallots and let them get fragrant. Then add your prosciutto and let it cook up til it's nearly crispy. Then add your garlic and let it get fragrant and nice and yellow-ish.

Add your white wine -- you'll get a moment of divine smells from the wine hitting the hot pan. Then toss in your garlic spears, give it a stir, and let it cook a bit. If you need a bit more wine to keep the pan just a little wet, go ahead and add it.

Let it simmer for about 5 minutes, then toss with your drained pasta, as much goat cheese as you like (I use about 1/2 cup for 1 lb of pasta), pine nuts, and top with a little grated parmesan and salt and pepper.

YUM!

* Katie Kent, is that you?