I’ve had this recipe in my head for awhile now. A pasta salad with tuna and Mediterranean flavors. On Saturday, my husband spent much of the day trimming trees in our backyard and then picking up the branches. Since I wasn’t sure when he’d take a break for lunch, I decided it was a great time to experiment.

Any kind of pesto will work for this, but since I had some garlic scapes from my last CSA pickup I decided to use those.

Garlic Scape Pesto

(Adapted from several recipes that I’ve seen online and in cookbooks)

• 1 C garlic scapes, roughly chopped
• 1/3 C pine nuts
• 3/4 C olive oil
• 1/4 C Parmesan cheese, grated
• salt and pepper as needed. I didn’t use any since I was having a lot of other flavors in the salad.

Whrr all the above ingredients in a food processor.

Tuna Salad with Garlic Scape Pesto and Kale

Ingredients:

• 1 box whole wheat pasta
• 1 bunch kale, destemmed and chopped
• 1 batch of pesto
• 1 can black olives, sliced
• 2 small cans of water-packed tuna, drained
• cherry tomatoes (optional)

Cook pasta according to package directions, adding the kale when boiling (if desired–my friend is going to try this using raw kale). Drain and add remaining ingredients.

The Verdict: The flavor was great, I loved the black olives. It needed some cherry tomatoes; unfortunately we didn’t have any. It still made for a decent lunch even without them. When I posted this on FaceBook, my friend Holly said she was going to try it with raw kale. I think that would be a good variation. It needs something with crunch. The tomatoes would have added another textural element. Hurry up, summer!

This post shared at Seasonal Sunday, Monday Mania, Recipe Roundtable, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday