Fifteen
plus Sixteen
equals Thirty-one
Oh dear, yes, that's 31 pounds of fava beans that I picked on Saturday. I waded through the bean patch picking beans as my husband sat on my little yellow garden stool catching the beans as I tossed them to him. He did help me to shell them before he left to watch a local high school baseball game. And just when I had all the beans blanched and ready to peel a friend showed up and offered to help me with that task. It was really quite pleasant - friend, favas and fine sparkling wine. And of course my husband reappeared just in time to help with the last bit of beans and bubbly. I made another batch of the fava dip and now I need to come up with a few more ways to use them. A lot of them are frozen for future use.
I harvested another pound or so of beans earlier in the week to try some grilled favas. I've read about grilling favas and always forgotten to try them prepared that way until after the harvest. This time I remembered and am I glad I did, they are delicious! It is the easiest way to prepare favas. Toss the fresh picked pods in a little olive oil, place them on a hot barbecue, stovetop ridged grill pan, under the broiler, whatever. Cook them until the skins start to develop blackened spots. Remove them from the heat and sprinkle them with some coarse salt and pepper, perhaps some chopped garlic and/or pepper flakes and serve. The beans steam in the pods and become tender. As you pop the beans out of the pods your fingers pick up the seasonings and flavor the beans. And the biggest surprise is that the pods are delicious also, the only part that isn't good is the stem end and strings that run the length of the bean. Small pods that haven't developed strings yet can be eaten whole. It's a great appetizer if you don't mind getting your fingers messy.
Here's the rest of the harvest for the week:
Golden Chard - 1 lb., 9.75 oz.
Favas - 32 lb., 2.25 oz.
Green Garlic - 1.5 oz. (what I remembered to weigh)
Cimmaron lettuce - 3.75 oz.
Noga lettuce - 3.75 oz.
Scallions - 10 oz.
Lumper potatoes - .5 oz.
Negresse potatoes - 3 oz.
Sorrel - 1.25 oz.
Strawberries - 8.5 oz.
The total for the week - 35 lb., 12.25 oz.
The total for the year - 112 lb., 1.5 oz.
Eggs last week - 22
If you would like to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately you should head on over to Daphne's Dandelions, the home of Harvest Monday. I hope to see a report of your harvest there!
That is a lot of fava beans! I continue to be impressed by your harvest totals. Out of curiosity, how many fava plants do you have? I assume that it takes a lot to generate that much. Unfotunately, I only have nine plants that germinated.
ReplyDeleteWow that is an amazing fava bean harvest! The grilled fava beans sound delicious. Grilling enhances the flavor of so many veggies but I never thought of grilling large beans! I'll have to try this.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely fava season in California!
ReplyDeleteI mostly prefer favas double peeled in salads with mint and something tart or salty to balance out the flavors (meyer lemon, salt cure olives, bacon...). I'll try your grilling recipe, sounds like a delicious way to skip the peeling part :-)
Thomas, It's almost a ridiculous amount of beans. :) I don't remember exactly, but it's about 30 to 35 plants that are producing right now. There's a second planting of about 24 plants that are just setting beans. These plants grew multiple stems on each plant. It's a jungle of favas.
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A Kitchen Garden... - Crazy, huh? The harvest is much larger than I expected and it's not over yet. I would love to hear how you like the grilled beans when you try them..
Angela, it certainly is! Mint sounds good with favas. I like to pair them with salty also - a salty cheese like feta, pecorino romano, or ricotta salata is great with them. Oh yes, the grilling method is a great way to get around the peeling chore. :)
ReplyDeleteThis harvest volumes remind me of my summer harvests when everything is in a peak of season!
ReplyDeleteExcellent harvest, both for fava beans and all other veggies and fruits!
Favas are one thing I don't grow, but maybe I should rethink that given your huge harvest! You got quite a haul of other veggies too.
ReplyDeleteThat is a lot of food. A third of your total harvest this year has been this week. The season is really ramping up for you.
ReplyDeletevrtlarica, this is a foretaste of summer bounty to come. I'm loving every bit of it.
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villager, favas haven't always been this bountiful a crop for me. Last year I grew a variety that took up a lot of room and hardly produced a thing, very disappointing.
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Daphne, fortunately all those beans came out to about 2 quarts of peeled beans. Still a lot, but they won't burst the freezer at the seams.
I'll try and remember to bbq the whole pods, sounds delicious! Our pods are only 4 inches long max at the moment, but not long to wait.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lot of beans, and so nice to have help with them when you need it.
ReplyDeleteThings are really coming along! I know you like favas more than I do, but seriously. . .that's a lot.
ReplyDeleteJan, the 4-inch pods would be good grilled, you can eat the whole thing without even shelling them. Yum!
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keewee, It was so wonderful to have help with that many beans. I kept telling my husband that he *must* (I hope) have a new appreciation of the effort that it takes to prepare them - he loves them even more than I do, but he's never had to do the work.
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Spider, yes it is a lot :) Maybe next year I'll cut back a little. Yeah, sure . . . When I can't stand picking and shelling them anymore I'll let the rest of them mature and dry, if I don't need the space.
Woohoo! What a great haul. Grilling fava beans is my favorite way to prepare them too--they're smoky and salty and so yummy that way. And you're right, even the pods get tasty. They're also so much easier than other means of preparation.
ReplyDeleteWe're using some of our fava bounty tomorrow night in a dinner of spaghetti with favas, bacon, onions, and spicy fried breadcrumbs.
I remember that one of the fava varieties you are growing has Violetta de something in its name. Have you found it more productive than other varieties?
That is definitely a respectable harvest and a lot of beans. I've never grown them or really eaten them before except as flower.
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing harvest, and you're already over 100 lbs of food for the year...excellent.
ReplyDeleteWe dry most of our fava beans and use them in the winter but I also like to make a few batches of fresh garlicy fava hummus as well. That's it though, we do not have many other ways in which we use them fresh...maybe a few stir frys. I'm glad you posted about grilling them and I will try that this summer, it sounds like a great way to cook them...we love fava beans.:)
Oh, I almost forgot, we made our own rendition of refried beans with some of our dried ones from last year the other day...it was not too bad.
Christina, Actually, I think it was a post on your blog that mentioned grilled favas which jogged my memory about that method of preparing them. They are so good and so easy! Tonight I'm going to use some of the peeled beans in risotto with some green garlic, maitake mushrooms, pancetta, and whatever pecorino I have in the cheese stash.
ReplyDeleteI'm growing two varieties this year, Extra Precoce Violetto and Extra Precoce Bianco. I think the Violetto is a bit earlier than the Bianco and both are very productive. I don't really find a difference in flavor, both are very good. Both of them are performing far better than the Superaguadulce (Morocco Strain) that I grew last year. Those set fewer pods and I got a lot of pods with no seeds inside. Bleah! The Violetto and Bianco are much much earlier than the Crimson Favas that I also grew last year, those took forever to set pods, although the crimsons were very productive once they got going.
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Ottawa Gardener, You've had the flowers but not the beans? Do you grow it as a cover crop or green manure? The flowers are tasty and so are the young leaves, but I can't imagine growing them and not eating the beans. :)
Mr. H., It is amazing that I'm already stashing some of the harvest in the freezer when the bulk of the harvest is still ahead of me! I never really realized how much my garden can produce until I started keeping track of the harvests. This will be the first full year and I think it's going to be quite revealing.
ReplyDeleteI love all sorts of beans mashed into a spread. It's great paired with any sort of greens or chopped broccoli piled on toasted bread.
Lovely harvest! I adore picking a large harvest like that and then having help from friends and family to prepare and process the crop. We do a similar "all hands" process with the big shelling pea harvests.
ReplyDeleteWow, I'm speechless, that's a lots of fava, great harvest!
ReplyDeleteI ate lots of fava "chips" when I was growing up, the peeled beans were toasted in oil and sprinkled with coarse sea salt, it was one of those after school snacks that I enjoyed.
That is some broad bean haul!
ReplyDeleteWhen I'm standing in line at the Farmers Market lately, several times now whoever is ringing me up hopefully points out the favas. I can see why when you get this kid of bumper crop.
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