June 26, 2010

A Week of Dry Miracles

There was sun, it was beautiful, I hope you also are enjoying the good weather. We got our wish of at least 4 dry days and I have been madly tilling and planting.

I start every day by walking around the whole farm checking things out. I take notes, root out slugs, log the weather, and identify any pest problems. This week, I rambled by a few spots I haven’t check out in a while and was very happy to find shiitake mushrooms have been soaking up the rain and fava beans have been defying the calendar. I did a whimsical late February/early March planting of favas that have been really turning into monsters with the weather, they love it.

On my walk through the farm there were positive signs of good things to come:

Lots of kohlrabi

Good looking romanesco broccoli

The real sign of summer this week, squash blossoms.

This Week’s Harvest

*  Shiitake mushrooms, grown on a variety of mediums at the farm: straw, alder chips, and logs.

*  Fava beans – usually an early spring treat, I planted some of these guys in late winter/early spring more as a cover crop than anything else. Well, it was cold and wet enough to get a crop out of them! Please note: some people have a genetic condition that results in fava “allergies” or favism. It’s rare but real.

* Scallions – evergreen hardy bunching onions

* Kale – white Russian variety

* On rotation – new potatoes. This week full shares will be receiving new potatoes. These should not be stored but eaten fresh this week. New potatoes aren’t cured in the sun and don’t store well. They are very creamy and very tasty. Half shares will see potatoes in the coming weeks as well.

Fava Beans

This might your first go at eating or cooking fresh fava beans. I love favas and used to eat them all the time for breakfast. Unshelled, fresh favas look like giant, bumpy string beans. They are 5 to 7 inches long and lined with padding on the inside that looks like cotton batting.

Fava beans have been a staple food for thousands of years in Asia, South America, the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. For some reason, they just haven’t caught on in North America.

Molly Watson has a really good tutorial on how to prepare favas, most recipes call for a cup or two of cooked favas, this tutorial shows you how to shell the beans and gets you to the point of cooked favas for your recipes.

Personally, I don’t take of the thin membrane on the individual bean as Molly instructs in the tutorial. Some people insist they must be peeled, I like the texture of the shell and leave it on.

Recipes for the Harvest

Simple Italian Fava Salad

1 cup coked favas
1/4 c grated pecorino cheese
olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, hot pepper – experiment with your own preferred ratio of ingredients to your tastes

Toss, plate, eat.

Fava Spread

Boil, mash then mix in salt, lemon, minced garlic, dash of olive oil, and spread on crusty bread or crackers

Ful Mudammas

The national dish of Egypt.  Favas are called “ful” (pronounced fool) in Arabic. I lived in Egypt, Jordan and Israel off and on for several years and while I was there this was breakfast every day in every single one of those countries. A plate with a bowl of ful and a bowl of hummus is loaded up with with pita, tomatoes, cucumbers, hard boiled eggs and goat cheese, it was the most fantastic thing every single morning.

There are a ton of ways to prepare this using dried, canned, and fresh favas. I like to use fresh when I can:

1 cup shelled fava beans
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt
cumin
lemon juice
minced garlic
minced onion (optional)
parsley (optional)
tahini (optional)

Bring a quart of water to boil in a pot. Add the fava beans and olive oil, partially cover the pot, and boil over medium heat for about 30 minutes, or until the fava beans are tender and can be squeezed out of their skins. If you like, add a teaspoon of salt during the last few minutes of cooking. Be careful not to overcook, or the interior of the bean will be mushy rather than intact.

Drain the fava beans, coarsely mash and add the remaining ingredients (I go heavy on the olive oil, lemon juice, and tahini for a thinner consistency).