Miriam Felton

A Quickie Aside: Did you all see the new knitty? Coachella blew my mind! What ingenious construction!

I never remember quite how happy the Downtown Farmer’s Market makes me until it opens again. Every Saturday morning, I love getting up early, knowing that I will come home with fantastically fresh produce and feel the desire to cook and clean and eat healthier as a result.

Deep into the season, I usually come home with awkwardly large amounts of fruit that will be sugared and processed into jars of jewel-like jam, but since the only fruit this early were some anemic strawberries, I was at a loss as to what to get and what to make.

Then I found the garlic scapes. I’d seen them before and never had any idea what to do with them. I asked the young girl who was helping her parents man the booth what garlic scapes were used for. She told me they had the texture of green beans or asparagus and rattled off a list of things you could do with them. As soon as she said “soup” my brain stopped listening and I knew I had to make soup. A yummy garlicky chicken based soup.

I collected my produce and fresh baked artisan bread, knit in public for a few hours and took myself and my scapes home.

The soup is rich and flavorful and just GOOD, so I thought I’d share it. The Potato Gnocchi give it more substantial-ness and make the broth a bit thicker. The scapes do indeed end up with the texture of green beans, but they lend a really great flavor to this soup.

Miriam’s Garlic Scape Soup

• 3 baby onions, I used the white portion as well as the firm green part, but not all of the stalks. It would equate to about 1 medium onion.
• 1-2 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut up small
• 1 box of chicken broth (I used Pacific Natural Foods Free-Range Chicken Broth)
• 1 can of white beans, drained
• 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained
• 6-10 garlic scapes, cut into 1″ lengths
• 1.5 cups of frozen carrots
• 1.5 cups of frozen corn
• 1 package of dried potato gnocchi
• water (1-1.5 quarts)
• Vegetable oil
• Salt & Pepper
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Rosemary

Combine broth, drained beans, drained tomatoes, scapes, carrots and corn in stockpot and set aside.

Saute diced onion in a bit of vegetable oil until wilted. Add the diced chicken to the pan along with a salt and pepper to taste. When chicken is half cooked, add a splash of balsamic vinegar. Finish cooking the chicken and then add to stock pot. Add rosemary, salt and pepper to taste.

Add about 1 quart of water and heat to a boil. Add gnocchi to boiling soup. When the gnocchi are done, they float to the surface, but the other vegetables will probably keep them from floating much. But when one floats to the surface, just give it another minute or two and then shut off the heat. If the broth is too strong after the gnocchi soaks some of the water up, add some more.