What I did with week 1

This is my first week as a member of Country Garden and Farm Market.  My first bag of organic produce contained: pea tendrils, strawberries, lettuce, arugula, fava beans, onions, lemon balm, and thyme.  I was pretty excited about the pea tendrils as I have seen them called for in a lot of Asian recipes but have never had any luck finding them.  Unfortunately, I didn't use them to try any of those recipes as I didn't feel I had enough to cook.  I'm sure they would have cooked way down.  So I used them to make a salad instead.  I made a salad with pea tendrils, strawberries, and cucumber and drizzled it with balsamic vinegar sweetened with a little honey.

I was also excited about the chance to try another fava bean recipe.  After the labor-intensive effort of removing them from their pods and shells, I sauteed them in olive oil with garlic and prosciutto.  I finished them off by glazing them with a little balsamic vinegar and sprinkling on some finely chopped mint.  The fava beans in this batch weren't quite as sweet and tender as the ones from a couple of weeks ago, but they were still very tasty.  I think their season must be about over!

The arugula also got turned into a salad.  This salad was a bit more time consuming.  I tossed the arugula with caramelized red onions, candied walnuts, goat cheese, and croutons and drizzled it with a balsamic vinaigrette.  It was so delicious!

But my favorite was probably the poppy seed strawberry shortcake that I made with the sweet, delicious, organic strawberries!

The thyme will be used to make Haitian food as this is a key ingredient in almost every Haitian dish!  I'm not sure yet what I'll do with the lemon balm, but I've been eyeing a recipe for a chicken and fruit summer salad that calls for lemon balm, so maybe I'll give that a try.  Does anyone else have any suggestions on how to use lemon balm?

Overall, I was pretty happy with my first week of produce.  My only complaint would be the quantity.  A full bag is supposed to feed four people, but except for the strawberry shortcakes, the quantities I received barely made two servings.  Maybe that's because it's early in the season?  I'll have to wait and see what happens as we get further into the summer.

If you would like details on any of the recipes I made, let me know and I'll post or email you with the recipe!

Fava Beans: A Labor of Love

Monday, I visited a CSA farm.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and these organizations provide their members with a weekly bag or box of organic produce in exchange for a few hours of work a week or a membership fee.  A friend of mine who lives out in Seattle was telling me about the CSA that she recently joined.  I got so jealous, I had to search my own community to see if we had anything like this in my area.  I found one online, but it only accepted 20 members a year and it was already full. 

In the meantime, my daughter had been asking me to go out and visit this farm that a friend of hers works on.  So Monday, we went.  And, in a random act of coincidence as so often happens, it turned out to be a CSA farm!  Furthermore, it was my lucky day because although I was not a member, they were bagging up fava beans and the owner let me buy a couple of pounds.  I had never had fresh fava beans before but had been stumbling across recipes for them for ages!  I recently had visited all my area grocery stores looking for fresh favas and found them to be more illusive than a fresh spring morel!  Now, I was the happy owner of two whole pounds worth!

I hurried home with my bag of fava beans and began to look up recipes online.  I discovered that preparing fresh fava beans is very time consuming!  First, you have to remove them from their pod.  Each large pod contains about four or five beans.  They are a pale green in color.

Once the beans are removed from their pods, you need to further remove the kernel from it's shell.  To do this, you blanch the beans in rapidly boiling water for three minutes and then plunge them into cold water.  The skins will crack (or not!) and you can now slip the emerald green kernel out of its shell.

The beans are a beautiful, vibrant color and I tasted one raw at this point and found it to be tender, sweet, and delicious!

I sauteed the beans in some olive oil along with about a cup each of chopped fennel bulb and onion and about three cups of chopped swiss chard.  I only had to let them cook for about 20 minutes before I decided they were done.  A little salt and pepper and they were good to go!

I served them along side Haitian chicken and rice.  The meal was delicious!  Unfortunately, I don't know where or when I'll be able to get my hands on some fresh fava beans again but I can promise you that if the opportunity should present itself, I will be buying them!