Fabulous Fava Beans

Happily, we've been trying lots of new veggies since we began frequenting the Farmer's Market as our main grocery source. We go to the market on Sunday morning and pick up whatever catches our eye. And hopefully, I can work a little kitchen magic, with the help of an online recipe search. I never have all the ingredients but I improvise. This sort of kitchen bravado isn't always reliable but hey, it's been fun.

A couple weeks ago, we bought fresh fava beans for the first time. You can see one peeking out right above the egg carton in the basket.


So, fava beans are kind of more work than I expected. In fact, even before I had finished cooking the dish, I already swore that we would never buy them again. You have to shell them twice! But then, we ate them. Yum. Yummmmmmm....

I bought them again and I cooked them last night.



What I did:

Shell beans from outer pods.
Cook beans in heavily salted water for 3 minutes.
Drain and quickly dump beans in ice water to stop the cooking.
Shell skin from beans. You'll be tempted to pop the bean out of the skins by squeezing the little suckers but you risk smashing the tasty bits if you do. (I did the first time.)
Sautée fresh garlic and onion in butter. Salt.
Toss in the beans until all coated and warm again.
Salt again as needed.

I was tempted to drizzle a bit of truffle oil on top. If I had a hunk of Parmesan I would have topped it with a few shavings. Next time, maybe I will.

breakfast with billie

8:56 AM

We were supposed attend a rain barrel setup class in Silver Lake this morning. Instead, I let Sergio sleep in and I enjoyed some me time.



Green Jeans Range Eggs purchased from the Egg Man himself.
Chrysanthemum/Green tea.
Apple pie made impromptu at 10PM two nights ago.
Billie Holiday on the radio.


What I wore.



The apron was Mom's present from her previous trip to China. Gorgeous right?

Americana's Farmer's Market

(Same developer as The Grove, same synchronized to music shooting water fountain.)

A few weekends ago, Sergio and I stumbled upon the new Saturday Farmer's Market at the Americana while waiting for my car to get serviced at the Glendale Toyota dealership. I had seen the signs but forgot it was that weekend. It was certainly the fanciest one we had ever been to, with a definite Disneyland vibe. Everything was so perfect and the booths all had matching signage. It was a bit odd, I guess. It felt like I was on movie set. Still, the fruit and veggies were real, and so were the nice people hawking their wares. It was a gorgeous morning and early enough for it not to be too crowded yet. Though, this will soon change as more people know about the market. We purchased a dozen fresh eggs and I admit, they taste markedly better than regular store-bought. We got slices of quiche from a French baker for Sunday morning. They were giving away canvas grocery bags and coupon booklets to promote the Americana restaurants and stores. We took advantage a restaurant coupon since there wasn't many cooked food stalls to choose from. It was a nearly perfect Saturday morning.



I insisted stopping by Anthropologie for some creative inspiration. I used to really dislike entering this store because everything seems so overpriced to me. BUT, I absolutely love their beautiful merchandise displays. I like to take time to browse through every tiny detail in their "home" areas. If you like interesting girly pretty websites, you have to check theirs out. I don't think I've ever purchased a stitch of clothing from this store. But I do own a few settings of flatware from them that I've been slowly accumulating to make a full service for six and then hopefully eight. This is the very first time I've ever seen something in a magazine (via someone's blog) and felt like I had to have it! So, I'm breaking up the purchasing since I think they cost too much -- mostly because we have perfectly good utensils. The last time I got a set was several months ago. Sergio thinks we have six already. I think we have five. I'll probably wait until my birthday to get more. Maybe I'll have all eight by end of summer!