CAVEAT: Ramps are not for the faint of heart, you guys, especially when you take three bunches of them and puree them and then eat a whole bunch. No one wants to french kiss me tonight, I’ll tell you that much.
I’ve been thinking about what could make it a little milder… I guess you could try sauteeing the ramps first, but roasting or blanching them would probably be better. Any of those ways would take the edge off a little. I mean, if you’re a little tiny baby kitten and don’t want to have a kickass dragon mouth that’s on fire with rampy awesomeness.
I was kind of surprised at how sweet it turned out – I ended up adding more cheese and salt than I was planning on, to balance it out.
So Niles came home from work as I was finishing up this comic, and he said, “Someone better not have used up all the ramps tonight!” I proudly proclaimed that I had used all of them for the pesto, and he said: “You used both bags?” GUYS THERE IS ANOTHER BAG OF RAMPS IN MY FRIDGE. What shall become of it?
Hmm… how would ramps taste in Ramen? Oooh, or sushi? And of course, they’d probably be excellent sauteed and thrown in a quiche… hmm…
Oooh, I am suddenly really excited to try them in a quiche! Or sushi! They’d make a really interesting maki roll, I bet, especially paired with some mild mushrooms.
I think you better just re-plant those ramps: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2012/04/are-ramps-harvests-sustainable/
@Scott: Niles and I had a long discussion about this, actually – I was going to go get some ramps from the local farmer’s market, but he said they were selling them at Whole Foods (where he gets a discount). They were listed as “organic” – and there’s no way that they could possibly be organic if they were foraged, there’d be no way to regulate what does and doesn’t go into the soil. Organic ramps would have to be cultivated, just by definition, from a farm that’s planting them specifically for harvesting and selling, rather than from over-foraging natural ramp fields.
Oooh, what farmer’s market are you going to? I thought the Logan Square market didn’t open until June!
@Allie: I was just going to bike down to the Green City indoor one, at the Nature Museum. So not really “local”, I guess. :D And you’re right, the summer Logan Square one doesn’t open til June 3! So long to wait!
Wow, that was a long and thoughtful response to my offhanded comment. I feel like a jackass now. I didn’t even actually READ that article.
@Scott: Don’t feel like a jackass!! :D It was a good and fair point. Anytime we as humans (especially food-enthusiast humans) get excited about anything en masse we run the risk of overconsumption. Ramps are trendy these days, and they only grow in certain soils and in certain circumstances and only for a short time of the year, so they’re already kind of at-risk. Honestly, I think about this kind of thing all the time when I eat seafood, especially sushi, and I try to check back in with these guys every now and then to see what’s sustainable and what’s not. I figure if I have the time to care about the ingredients that go into my cooking, then I have the time to care about where and how the ingredients are sourced.