Pesto

It's Wednesday, which means produce delivery at our house. This is one of those weeks when I just didn't have time to check out what was coming in our box and I was so excited to see all the goodies. Really, fresh strawberries, cherries, apriums, and peaches! Oh yes, and there were plenty of veggies too. Before I get on with one of my favorite easy recipes, here's a look at what was in my Abundant Harvest Organics box.

Ok, on with the PESTO! Included in my box were basil and green garlic, great items for pesto. To make pesto, you'll want to be able to blend all these yummy ingredients somehow (food processor, hand blender, Brezza)

Ingredients:

-1 bunch basil
-2 heads of green garlic (or 2-3 cloves)
-5 tablespoons olive oil
-1 lemon

-2 tablespoons parmigian cheese

-pinch of salt

Directions:

1) Remove basil leaves from stalks and wash them

2) Cut the ends of the green garlic so that you have just the white part of the green garlic (Confused? Check out the pic)

3) Combine all ingredients in food processor, bowl (if using a handblender), or my favorite the baby Brezza

4) Blend in pulses, add extra olive oil if consistency is more dry than paste-like

5) Serve however you like it! Over whole wheat pasta is our favorite way. My 12 month-old loved this, surprise, surprise!

Variations- Add nuts for a little crunch. If I wasn't giving this to our 12 month old, I would have added in almonds or pine nuts in the blending stage, it adds a little crunch to the texture. Sometimes I also add chopped green olives as well, but if you do so balance the saltiness with a bit more lemon juice. Wanna be sneaky, add in a cube (or two) of your pureed greens to warm pasta then toss in the pesto... trust me, know one will know.

Aprium & Peach - Double duty delight

Yum, stone fruits are in season. With our own homegrown May Pride peaches ready to rock and the generous helping of apriums in our produce box, I've been pining (or peachin' heehee) for something to do with them all. Fresh is best. But I've dried some. I've also made a mash up that does double duty as baby food/compote and fruit spread.

Inredients:

-5 Aprium

-5 Preaches

Optional-

-Sugar or agave to sweeten to taste

-Lemon juice

Directions:

1) Clean, peel, cut fruit into chunks

2) Steam until chunks are just cooked through (I do 10 min in the Brezza)

3) Drain off excess liquid, this is important to not have too runny of a spread

4) To make a smoother consistency blend as desired. Or remove mixture from steam basket and mash with a fork.

5) To make fruit spread I add about 1/5 tsp of lemon juice and 1 tsp agave to each 1/2c of fruit.

*Tip- Freeze the fruit spread in ice cube tray as you would baby food. Take out cubes as needed and heat in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds to put "fresh" spread on sandwiches, toast, yogurt, ice cream.

Fava beans, a lotta work, a lotta tastiness

So what comes to mind when you hear "fava beans?" For me, all I think of is Silence of the Lambs of course! I'd never tried these myself just because of that fact. And really, there haven't been many opportunites to try them anyway. But alas, this week they arrived on my doorstep. So this was my chance to disconnect fava beans and Hannibal Lector.

Being as this was my first time with fava beans, I used the parboil and peel method. Basically this amounts to boiling the whole bean pod briefly, putting them in an ice bath, removing the beans from the pod, then carefully removing the thick waxy covering from each bean. Was this time consuming? For me, yes, it took me about 30 mins from start to finish. Would I do it again, for sure. To be honest, the end result tasted a bit like edamame to me. But, imagine a creamier, almost buttery, edamame. Lightly salted, and voila, very simply and quite tasty.

Here's a link to the Abundant Harvest newletter, with instructions for various ways to cook fava beans.

Fava beans in the pod



Beans remove from pod

Fava bean with coating removed. Colors varied from vibrant yellow to lime green.

Beans in waxy skin (left), completely shelled (right).