Pasta Salad with Grilled Fruit and Goat Cheese {Recipe from MELT}

A sweetly savory summer side dish or light vegetarian supper--pasta combined with grilled fruit, goat cheese, herbs and nuts. From MELT: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese

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I want to talk about barriers to successful grilling.

[Those of you with your grills hooked up to your natural gas line, skip ahead to the recipe. Lucky ducks. The rest of you, read on.]

See, for 9 of the past 10 years we have tried--key word--to be successful at grilling.  Our grill is the largest tiny portable one there is, and it has a nice loop to hold a tiny propane tank (the kind a restaurant might use for creme brûlée). Each time we wanted to grill out, we'd carry the grill out of the shed, set it up, preheat, put the food on the hot grill, and then . . . when it was time to turn the meat, the small propane tank was empty and the grill was cooling. When this scenario is played out often, it makes you want to just crank up the oven and heat up the house!

Last summer I decided to tackle our grilling barrier head on.  We got a standard size propane tank, one that has to be carried separately from our little grill. Finally I could trust that when I started the fire I'd be able to see the cooking through, and with that our grilling changed.  We do store our grill in the garage (because we've since moved to a house with a garage) so once it's hauled out and set up I like to grill anything handy and used the grilled items in future meals.  I've used this technique in my Grilled Veggie Ciabatta Pizza, but now I'd like to share a terrific picnic side dish or light summer supper:  Pasta Salad with Grilled Fruit and Goat Cheese.

At its heart this a recipe for macaroni and cheese, so it's no surprise that I got the recipe from MELT: The Art of Macaroni and Cheese (link to the author's website).  I received a copy of this terrific cookbook last fall and have made several recipes with it, including Macaroni and Cheese in a Pumpkin and Pumpkin Cranberry Maple Kugel.


One of the first recipes that caught my eye was an orzo salad with Humboldt Fog goat cheese and grilled peaches. Since I eat seasonally I figured I'd need to wait until peach season to try it--but first I found myself with some fresh figs at the same time  I found Humboldt Fog marked down at the fancy cheese counter.  Score! This tasted so yummy that the name--Humboldt Fog--stuck, so since then I'm always on the lookout for it in the marked down bin.

The next time I came across the cheese coincided with cored pineapple selling for the same price as whole pineapple.  I prefer not to pay for the parts that just go into the compost anyway, so I picked up a container of prepped pineapple. While we had the grill going for steaks, I whipped up the marinade and tossed the pineapple in to coat.  I was out of orzo, so I subbed in elbow macaroni.

This savory-sweet pasta salad is a refreshing addition to summer meals. We prefer it served freshly tossed or at room temperature (do not microwave to reheat the leftovers).

For more recipes using figs, please see my Fig Recipes Collection. For more recipes calling for fresh peaches, please see my Peach Recipes Collection. For more recipes using pineapple, please see my Pineapple Recipes Collection. These collections are part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

I'm sharing more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes like I do, follow me on Instagram. Need a good read? I'm sharing articles of interest on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

28 Recipes Using Garlic Scapes {Recipe Round Up}

Got garlic scapes? Need inspiration? Here's a round up of more than 30 recipes, from appetizers to main dishes to side dishes, using that mild seasonal treat the garlic scape.

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One of the reasons I started this blog was to provide practical support for local eating.  

Eating locally means you're eating foods in season--when they taste the best! It also means you're introduced to new foods. At the start of the farmer's market and CSA season these funny looking garlic scapes are many folks' first experience with a new food.


I'm so pleased with this Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up! Right here in one a single place I've gathered more than 28 recipes using this wonderfully versatile and locally available plant part.

Pin this for later!

The garlic scape is indeed a plant part! Like I use unwanted onion skins and celery leaves in my frugal freezer Soup Stock Packs, while saving the main part of the vegetable to use/eat directly, the scape is the {unwanted} flowering portion of the garlic bulb. After cutting off the scapes and using them in one of the dishes below, you'll still harvest the Main Attraction, the garlic bulb, a few weeks later.  How cool is that?

This amazing photo is from Stephanie of Garden Therapy

My fellow food bloggers and I share what you can fix if you have scapes from your garden (it's easy to grow your own garlic), your Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share, or your farmer's market. Garlic scapes are ready to harvest all at once, only once a year, so it's a good idea to have a mess of ideas in your toolkit so you can plan ahead in the kitchen.


I've broken down the recipes by category [because cataloging recipes seems to be something I like to do on this blog]. I've got pestos, starters, sides and mains.  There are garlic scape recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  There are gluten free and vegan recipes using garlic scapes.  There are recipes for stove top, oven, microwave, and grill.

For even more recipes using garlic scapes, please see my Garlic and Garlic Scape Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.


I'm sharing more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes like I do, follow me on Instagram. Need a good read? I'm sharing articles of interest on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

My favorite way to use garlic scapes is to put up a mess of Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto. I freeze it into small cubes and use it year round in salad dressings, Chicken Garlic Scape Meatballs, pizza sauces, Herbed Garlic Scape Cream Cheese Spread/Dip, my Cheesy Garlic Scape Pesto Flatbread, Grilled Garlic Scape Pesto Smashed Potatoes, Shrimp and Garlic Scape Pesto Scampi, and this hummus. I've got a quick video how I make it, and you can find the Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe specifics here.

Pin my Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe here!

While there is no single garlic scape pesto recipe, my favorite is my Garlic Scape Pistachio Pesto recipe. While arranging all the links these bloggers have thoughtfully provided for me, I found a wide variety of pesto recipes.  Each recipe below is different--using a variety of leaves, a variety of nuts, but always using the mild garlic scape.  I thought I knew all there was about putting up pesto, but there's a wealth of information, tips, and tricks in these posts.





The Starters category covers appetizers, dips, and soups. When the weather is warm I like to eat lighter, and having appetizers for a Dip Dinner keeps my kitchen cool and my family happy. Dip dinners with a big plate of whatever's handy from the farm share makes it a fun way to eat a lot of vegetables.





One of my goals this year is to increase the number of side dish recipes on this blog--here are some ideas for all of us to use this summer.  I'm currently inspired to try Sarah's Garlic Scape Vinaigrette in a pasta salad or as a marinade for grilled vegetables. For more inspiration check these recipes out:





The Main Dishes with Garlic Scapes category covers breakfast dishes through dinner meals.  I remember touring a garlic farm in Japan where there was garlic wine (I was pregnant and didn't taste it though the spouse said it was . . . interesting) but I don't recall a garlic dessert.  I'm glad.




In addition to these Clickable Collages [I learned how thanks to Anyonita's tutorial] I've also added a Garlic Scape Recipes board on Pinterest, where I've pinned each post and will continue adding as I find more recipes using garlic scapes throughout the internet.  If you missed my many calls for garlic scape recipes and would like me to pin yours to my board, please feel free to leave the link in the comments and I'll add to the post. Thanks!



Since I'm still finding links I'd been squirreling away, let's make this 28+ recipes! :)

Susan's Fresh Primer: Green Garlic and Garlic Scapes

Casey's Feta and Gruyere Pizza

Lindsey's Garlic Scape Powder

Lindsey's Pickled Garlic Scapes

Garlic Scape Pesto Cheesy Flatbread Pizza (Pizza Night!)

Mild garlic flavor from the garlic scape pesto, plus plenty of shredded cheeses, makes a Cheesy Garlic Scape Flatbread--a seasonal treat that can be enjoyed year round thanks to your freezer.

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I want to talk about making pizzas at home, and share a way you can keep it innovative.

Having a stash of pizza topping options in the fridge and freezer keeps our weekly pizza nights interesting.  It's super simple to throw some leftover protein (chicken, ham, ground beef--links to some of my pizza posts) onto a meat-containing pizza.

It's a breeze to add fresh vegetables (peppers, spinach, or mushrooms--more links to suggested recipes) and/or preserved vegetables for a vegetarian pizza.

I store a lot of pizza cheese in the freezer [NOT always a good idea to use in a pizza], have a vat of feta standing by, and sometimes you don't even need cheese [this would be the place where I'd link to the Beef and Broccoli Pizza if it had been posted].

It takes some time to build up that pizza topping stash, but it's worth it.  Preparing a batch as each vegetable hits peak season means that I'm not constantly slaving away in the kitchen [it only seems like that in August-September with the tomato canning, though, like childbirth, I'd do it again] yet I get to enjoy a wide variety of homemade, locally grown sauces on our pizzas throughout the year.

I don't want to tell you what to do want to subliminally brainwash you to consider trying to put up one pizza topping in your freezer this summer. Here's some suggestions, in order of when they're ripe and ready throughout the season--all of these store well in the freezer.

• Will it be Garlic Scape Pesto? (link to my recipe)
• How about Roasted Garlic? (link to my recipe)
• Maybe some jars of Fresh Tomato Pesto? (link to my recipe)
• Perhaps plain ol' ordinary Pesto? (link to my recipe)

Think about it and get back to me.  In the meantime, here's one way you could use your bounty: pizza.

I'm not sure if regular readers noticed, but it's turning into Garlic Scape Week around here. I'm preparing a Garlic Scape Recipe Round Up for my next post and wanted to include some of the ways I feed my family garlic scapes from our garden and the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm share.  [In order to include my recipes in the round up, I kinda needed to post them first.]

I started off by sharing how I put up my scapes in the form of pesto, combined with a variety of leaves (I'm partial to parsley and basil) as well as an assortment of nuts (I'm partial to pistachio and sunflower seeds).  I use this pesto in all sorts of things, from Hummus to Shrimp Scampi and now, because it's a Friday and my family likes our Friday Night Pizza Nights, on a pizza.

I made two pizzas using this Garlic Scape and Pistachio pesto:  a plain cheese one and a more involved Sun-dried Tomato, Artichoke, and Olive with Fresh Mozzarella pie.  Since I was making a number of pizzas, I told the kids to go ahead and eat the cheese one while it was hot.  By the time I joined them they'd nearly demolished it and my son told me "this tastes just like cheesy garlic flatbread". Well, now I don't have to come up with a creative title--thanks!