Fava Bean Pasta

Two of our very favorite Spring Time vegetables are Fava Beans and Asparagus. We planned a dinner with both. We are having some construction at our house, putting in French Doors off of our dining room to the front lawn.

We had the expectation that we would be unable to use the dining room during construction due to the dust dirt and chaos that would ensue. It magically didn’t happen that way. Pat is amazingly thoughtful and thorough and built a chamber isolating the construction area. It is completely sealed from the interior of the house. The room is shielded in Plastic and reminds us of a “kill” room used in the TV show Dexter.

Pat lives in Encinitas and is staying up here while construction is happening. Doshi, his girl friend, and our long time friend joined us all for dinner.

We started with Asparagus covered with Brown Butter a Fried Egg and Grated Parmesan cheese. It is a very rich and easy preparation and we love it!

We then had one of our ALL time favorites. Bacon and Fava Bean Pasta. We make this every spring when Favas are at their early spring best. Fava Beans of course need to be double peeled. First you remove them from their long green shell (this always takes about an hour of mindless work). Then you par boil them and remove their skin from each bean. What started as a cubic foot of Fava’s gets reduced to a final size of a little more than a cup.

The recipe for the pasta can be found on our blog of: April 30, 2008. Click the date to get the recipe.

The dinner was great, and it was fun being with Pat and Doshi. We had long wanted to put doors leading out from our dining room, but until we met Pat we didn’t trust or want anyone working inside of our house on a project of this magnitude. It was worth the wait!