Garlic Scape Herbed Cream Cheese

A fast and flavorful spread for appetizers or snacks, this zesty cream cheese marries fresh herbs with garlic scapes for a Spring treat. Spread this on crackers or tortillas, pipe it into peppers, or dunk a carrot for a fresh from the farm share appetizer.

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To make a more useful website for my fellow farm share eating folks, I periodically ask food bloggers for recipes so I can add their photos (and links back to their sites) to my Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient.

It's mean, rude, poor form, and illegal to take recipes and photos someone else has created and publish them on another website. Want to print off a recipe to hang on your fridge and refer to? Rock on! Here's how to print from my site. Want to copy and paste this post to publish somewhere else? No, you do not have my permission to steal my work. You're most welcome to link to this page instead.

When I was gathering garlic scape recipes I came across this Grilled Crostini with Garlic Scape Cream Cheese and Tomatoes from Kim of Kiss My Smoke. Her recipe reminded me that I hadn't tried making a savory cheese spread using farm share ingredients.

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This is not that spread that my kids keep asking me to make--I think I need to use some ricotta and more pepper to make it a bit drier/firm it up, to come closer to Boursin, but much more testing is needed. Rule #3, something to look forward to. 

[What are Rules #1 and #2? Rule #1--you need someone to love. Rule #2--you need something to do. Rule #3--you need something to look forward to. I learned these from my spouse shortly after we met.]

No, for this cream cheese spread I was inspired by Kim's Crostini and also by the burgeoning growing of my herb patch and garlic bed. Each Fall I plant garlic bulbs. They get a bit of root growth in before winter sets in, then snuggle under a blanket of snow and emerge from the ground in the Spring. 

Each Spring I am rewarded with garlic scapes. [Oh, and garlic too, but I'm really a fan of the scapes. They appear for a brief and shining moment and I want to make the most of them.] I mostly use my garlic scapes in pesto, that I then use in a variety of recipes (see my garlic scape recipes collection here). I wanted to try an alternative use, and made this fresh herbed cream cheese recipe.

This garlic scape herbed cream cheese can be used in a myriad of ways. I've dunked veggies into it, piped it into peppers, and spread it on a tortilla to make an appetizer sandwich pinwheel. It makes a fresh addition to a Spring vegetable appetizer platter. 

Want more vegetable-centric appetizers? Please check out my Awesome Veggie Apps and Snacks board on Pinterest.

For more recipes using garlic scapes, please see my Garlic and Garlic Scapes Recipe Collection. For more recipes using fresh herbs, please see my Recipes Using Herbs 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?

Garlic Scape Herbed Cream Cheese
By Kirsten Madaus

A fast and flavorful spread for appetizers or snacks, this zesty cream cheese marries fresh herbs with garlic scapes for a Spring treat. Spread this on crackers or tortillas, pipe it into peppers, or dunk a carrot for a fresh from the farm share appetizer.

Prep time: 00:10
Cook time: 00:00
Total time: 00:10

Yield: about 1 cup
Ingredients:
2 or 3 garlic scapes, chopped into short pieces (about 3 Tablespoons total)
¼ cup packed fresh parsley leaves--I used flat Italian parsley
2 Tablespoons chopped fresh chive leaves (got chive blossoms? I've got ideas!)
8 ounces cream cheese
about ¾ teaspoon of freshly ground pepper
about ½ teaspoon of salt--I use kosher
optional to serve: carrot sticks, mushrooms, blanched asparagus or celery to dunk, mini peppers to stuff, tortillas to wrap, crackers to spread upon. It's up to you.

Instructions:

Place garlic scapes, parsley and chives in a food processor with a metal blade. Pulse several times, stopping to scrape after every few pulses, until the fresh herbs are finely chopped.

Add the cream cheese and pulse again to blend. Stop and scrape down the sides.

Add the spices and blend well.

Transfer to a container and chill for 30 minutes to an hour to let the flavors mingle.

Serve as shown in the assorted photos, or go off on your own direction.

I have two behind the scenes photos for you today. The first is showing the bright sunny day when I was taking photos of the garlic scape herbed cream cheese and using lots of black foam core board to cut down on the light. Robert Barker came into the kitchen to take a nap in support.

The second behind the scenes photo shows the reality of sharing a photo space with my daughter while school is in session. Oy! 

2020 Update: Four years ago I thought it was hard to share space when the rest of the household was out of the house for much of the day. Little did I know . . . I decided to update this post while writing my Morning Pages and To Do list in the living room, started to update this post in my beloved office upstairs, and I'm finishing the update on the dining room table. Semper Gumby. Always flexible!

Reminds me of the fable that a man complains his house is too small . . . so the Wise One tells him to bring in his chickens, then his sheep, then his hogs, then his cattle. The man can barely move in his home at this point--then the Wise One tells him to return all the animals to the barns and, all of a sudden, the man's house doesn't seem so cramped anymore.