Another Look at Salad with a Grilled Medly with Scapes

Grilled Summer Vegetable Salad 

with Scapes and Garden Turnips

My own food with my own camera for a change! This is how we arranged our grilled salad and sausages, and yes, each of my kids ate it, loved it, and claimed a favorite part!

We may have been taking a break from greens in our family, but that doesn't prevent our farmers from producing them and sending them my way through my coop basket. We were gifted more this week, including a large head of Napa cabbage, a soft head of dark romaine, and spring mix. We are trying to eat locally and seasonally so we can not and will not shirk our new beauties. We are, instead, being creative.

Last night I concocted a surprisingly crowd pleasing version of "salad." Along with more greens in our basket, we received scapes and garden turnips. I did not know what scapes were until I saw and tasted them, then looked them up on Epicurious.. They are curly green stems from the tops of garlic, and can be cooked many different ways, grilled, sauteed and even raw. I took a bet that the turnips could go the way of the grill too, as it was 90 degrees in East Helena, Montana last night and I was not going to use the kitchen. Here's how I did it, and made some children and a husband very surprised.

Ingredients: * means its local

10 garlic scapes *

1 garden turnip, sliced into 1/2 inch or thinner slices *

6-8 Napa cabbage leaves, cut in half *

1/2 red onion, cut into rings

2 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper to taste (about 1 teaspoon pepper, 1 tablespoon salt for us)

8 minced basil leaves *

About 2 tablespoons Vinegar (any kind will do, I used rice wine vinegar because its what I had but balsamic would have been yummy)

I envisioned grilling all this on my gas grill, on the grate, without foil or a pan, so I kept all the pieces large enough they would not easily fall through the grates. I put all the veggies in a large bowl, coated with olive oil, salt and pepper, and then put my hands in and massage the veggies until thoughouly coated, letting the mix sit together and ruminate for ten minutes on my counter.

I put my gas grill on medium heat and then, with tongs, delicately dumped my bucket contents on the top rack of my grill to give it some distance from the direct heat. I was also grilled sausages below so put them on at the same time. 

I closely monitored the veggies, using tongs to move pieces to get prevent burning. The cabbage will burn a bit and look wilted, but it is yummy that way. The onions softened and caramelized, the turnips rounds needed to got directly on the heat so I shifted them around to be directly on the grate. It took about 320 minutes or moving, jostling and encouraging but evenly the pieces all looked evenly done, so I scooped them on a platter and drizzled the mix with vinegar. I served this will frozen Flathead cherries and local beer brats from Montana City Meats, all in all fairly local and very delicious.

Part of the inspiration for the olive oil and vinegar dressing came from one of the websites I frequent, Nourished Kitchen, which (if you click on this link) featured how to eat real food if staying cheap or cooking for one. One of the tips they gave is to skip the store bought salad dressing and use oil and vinegar instead. This we did.