The harvests of fresh vegetables are slowing down a bit at the moment as the garden transitions from spring to summer vegetables. The biggest item on the list is the dried fava beans. I've been doing a little reading about the uses of dried favas and am looking forward to experimenting with them. Dried favas can substituted for chickpeas to make hummus or felafel. I've seen recipes for simple purees and snacks made from soaked and fried beans. Soup is also a good use for the dried beans. And I'm sure there's much more. One thing I'm curious about is how the purple beans are going to turn out after soaking. Most of the recipes I've seen for large dried beans like these call for peeling them after soaking so I'm wondering if the beans inside will pick up some of the color, I'll find out.
The strawberries have been coming in at a nice steady pace, about 1 1/3 pounds a week for the last three weeks. And I finally tasted the first Mara des Bois! I picked 2 berries yesterday and shared them with my husband. It's a little difficult to judge based on tasting only one petite berry. Compared to the Seascape berries I found it to be less acidic and more tender. It didn't have as much aroma as a wild strawberry, something the literature about them claims, but it had a certain "strawberryness" that most commerically grown berries certainly lack. I wasn't disappointed and I'm really looking forward to tasting more.
Here's the harvest totals for the week:
Piracicaba broccoli - 5.25 oz
Capers - 8.5 oz
Chamomile - 1 oz
Golden Chard (first from new plants) - 1 lb 7 oz
Dried Favas - 2 lb 13 oz
Noga Romaine lettuce (the last head) - 9.75 oz
Snow Peas (final harvest) - 3.75 oz
Strawberries - 1 lb 5.5 oz
Total for the week - 7 lb 5.75 oz
Total for the year - 240 lb 4.75 oz
13 eggs this week
If you've got a harvest to show off or if you just want to ogle what other garden bloggers are harvesting head on over to Daphne's Dandelions, the home of Harvest Monday.
Oh goodness, I LOVE capers and never thought about growing them! I wonder if I could give them a go here in Ohio?
ReplyDeleteThank you for reminding me of the fava for chickpea substitution. I remember reading that once and wanted to try it but then it slipped into the dark regions of my memory. Nice picture too!
ReplyDeleteHow do you dry the fava beans?
ReplyDeleteWhat pretty dried fava beans. I would love to grow capers too. I guess I will have to do a little research on that.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous photo! That's a lot of dried beans, your fava crop was amazingly abundant!
ReplyDeleteWow your fava harvest has been so impressive! You've inspired me to try growing them and the pircicaba also. I don't know if either will grow here but I'll plant them in the fall and find out.
ReplyDeleteI love the beans. I've never grown favas before. I've never even tasted them. I've always been afraid that they would taste like lima beans for some reason - which I hate. But I keep seeing them and they look so pretty. Some year I have to try them.
ReplyDeletePretty picture of dried beans. Fava beans are not my favorite, but they do look good.
ReplyDeleteGreat purple and white fava beans - they do make very good felafel. I always use them rather than chickpeas and I think it's more authentic north African recipe. I've never had enough of my own, though, I buy dried beans.
ReplyDeleteAh, eggs. I want chickens so badly, it hurts.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned on my blog that you could make zucchini bread and butter pickles....do you do them the same way as with cucumbers!? Please let me know...I'm so excited.
Those are some really purple broad beans! Love purple veg :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat lovely dried beans. I'm experimenting with dried black beans for the first time this year.
ReplyDeleteAlso it seems that Piracicaba broccoli is on everyone's harvest list this week. I need to read up on what is so special about it.
Allison, You would have to grow them in pots and winter them indoors, they are hardy to maybe zone 8. They are hardy to about 18F, but I'm not sure how long they will tolerate temperatures that low.
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Ottawa Gardener, we'll have to compare notes on using favas in place of chickpeas, I'll probably try hummus first since that is a favorite around here.
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meemsync, the plants are supposed to stay in the ground until the pods turn black. I couldn't devote the garden space to do that quite long enough so I let the pods mature and when they started to turn leathery I pulled the entire plants and laid them out in the sun so that the pods could dry on the plants. When the pods were crispy dry I shelled the beans.
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Robin, I've got a few links on my page "My Caper Obsession" that might help you.
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Angela, Those 2 varieties were quite prolific for both fresh beans and dried. I'm growing them again next year.
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Jane, Favas are adapted to a lot of the warmest parts of the Mediterranean so perhaps they will produce for you. And the Piracicaba was developed to tolerate warm weather. I'll be interested to see how they do for you.
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Daphne, I've not grown or eaten the standard green lima bean. I love Christmas limas, but from what I've read they aren't like the green limas. And come to think of it, I don't think I've had dried favas before, I don't know if they are even like the dried Christmas limas. I'm certainly no help to you in this regard!
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vrtlarica, there are very few dried beans I've had that I haven't liked so I hope the dried favas are good.
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chaiselongue, felafel and hummus are the 2 things I'm really looking forward to trying with the favas rather than chickpeas, so I'm glad to hear that you like the fava felafel.
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Ribbit, I wanted chickens for a long time too, it was just my luck that my neighbor already had a coop but didn't want to take care of the chickens by himself. Our chicken co-op has worked really well.
I use a recipe from the book The Joy of Pickling by Linda Ziedrich, it is specifically for zucchini and is different than her recipe that uses cucumbers. I could email you the recipe if you like.
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Dan, perhaps you've noticed that I have a thing for purple veggies also. :)
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Emily, I've not grown black beans before but they are a favorite of mine. There's a good article by Barbara Damrosh about Piracicaba that was published in the Washington Post a few years ago, you might want to google it and find it.
Please, please, please!!! My email is on the sidebar of my blog. Thanks for taking the time!
ReplyDeleteGreat picture Michelle!!! Those favas look brilliant. I've never seen them that color before. I MUST GOOGLE.
ReplyDeleteRiibbit, I'll send that off tomorrow, too tired tonight.
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Thomas, I got the seeds from gourmetseed.com - they are the "Extra Precoce Violetto" variety.
Beautiful photo of those fava beans! And that is a lot of beans too. It will be interesting to see their uses, vs fresh ones.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful picture of the dried beans.
ReplyDeleteDried fava beans makes good humus and creamy soup, I make it same way as creamy pea soup.
villager, I think I'll have enough to get by for a while. :)
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Mac, Or like split pea soup with a ham hock. Yum.