I cannot claim this recipe as my own, as I found it online some time last year. At this point, however, I have no idea which web site it came from (if anyone knows, by all means, please credit its creator). In any case, I like it quite a lot more than Dorie's recipe. Hope you do, too.

2 1/2 cups roughly chopped garlic scapes
1 cup pine nuts, toasted
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1 1/2 cups extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground black pepper to taste

You'll want to toast the pine nuts in a dry skillet over medium heat and until lightly brown and fragrant. Remove them from heat and add the pine nuts and all other ingredients to a food processor and blend until it is as smooth as you like. In my experience it comes out a little on the thick side, so you might want to add some extra liquid, depending on how you like it.

Also, this makes a TON of pesto. If you aren't planning to use it all within a few days, it does get more potent as it sits. Might want to share some with your neighbors.

I do think the scapes change in flavor over time. I made scape butter and scape pesto (not Dorie G's recipe but my own w/ toasted walnuts, you can find both on my blog) in early June from freshly cut scapes from my garden and found both very good, not overly garlicky. But after a week to 10 days in the fridge, the pesto became too pungent, and I threw it out, something I usually don't do. The garlic butter was long gone by then so I cannot tell. My conclusion: process and eat scapes when they are very fresh, within a week.

Just trimmed the scapes off a long row of garlic and tossed most of them into the compost heap. (Scapes are trimmed so the plant puts the energy into the garlic bulb instead of producing a flower.) This is an overrated ingredient, in my opinion---too harsh in any more than the smallest of doses.

mix the pesto with mashed potatoes and maybe add cilantro and lemon juice?

Garlic scapes are very intense in their flavor, somehow more spicy and garlicky than garlic cloves (in my opinion). They may be more of a pesto addition rather than a main ingredient for your taste.

I don't think so. I've made Dorie's scape recipe twice, and both times it was too garlicky for my taste. The 2nd time I subbed some pistachios and added some spinach to take down the flavor. It worked, but it was more spinach pesto than garlic scape at that point.