Spring is Green

Wine: Celius Toscana 1999 Indicazione Geografica Tipica from Silver Lake Wine

When Spring arrives we always make two of our favorite dishes. We started by making Fava Bean Puree. At the Hollywood Farmer’s Market, fresh young fava bean appeared and we purchased several pounds. Fava’s require lots of peeling, first the bean from the large shell, then par-boiling the beans, and finally peeling the bean itself. There is a slippery skin that easily slips off after the boiling. Then you can start to make the puree. We simmer the beans in Olive Oil, garlic and Thyme then remove the thyme and puree. We served the puree with pita bread that had been toasted in the oven. It brought back all of the tastes of spring. We will be making this some more this spring and summer! Fava’s have a fairly long season. This recipe was modified by Cathy from the Chez Panisse Vegetables cookbook.

For the second course we made a new dish for us. It was from an old cookbook that we had, The Fine Art of Italian Cooking by Giuliano Bugialli. The recipe is called Asparagus Florentine Style. The asparagus is sautéed in butter, parmesan cheese is added then for the complete cholesterol hit, a fried egg is served on top! Pass the Lipitor with it! It is wonderful! Double click the scanned image from the book and you should be able to read and make it.

For the pasta course we make Asparagus Pasta. This is one of my very favorite dishes. The dish is simplicity itself, with great flavors. Browned butter, Asparagus, Parmesan Cheese and great Pasta are the keys. Cathy adapted it from a recipe in Chez Panisse Pasta Pizza & Calzone by Alice Walters. We got all of the cheese, of course from the Cheese Store of Silverlake. We also got the curly pasta from the Cheese Store.