What better veg could you have than freshly picked from the garden. Cooked straight away and served.This was our rather poor harvest of broad beans. I did have grand plans for what we would do with our broad beans but as the sum total gave us about 8 beans each, those plans were canned! The slugs had been having a field day, literally over night, despite our best efforts to keep them at bay. There wasn't enough for one meal let alone to feed a family of four. However, that said, the beauty of watching my husband and the boys pick them was unmissable. They brought them into the kitchen, where we shelled them together. My husband then lightly steamed them for a couple of minutes. We devoured our 8 broad beans each. They were delicious and next year we know to plant more and to stay well ahead of the slugs. Our beer traps will be a lot more elaborate and sneeky, we will outsmart those beasties!
This is our rather paltry entry for this month's Heart of the Matter event, which is vegetables. Heart of the Matter is a great blog which Joanna at Joanna's Food and Ilva at Lucullian Delights began. It has lots of heart healthy recipes and is worth a look even if you don't have any heart issues. Heart healthy food is good for a lot of things, including watching your weight... Go and take a look...
Another great dish using Broad Beans is Broad Bean Soup
(This would serve 2 adults and 2 small children or 4 adults as a tiny snack in cups.)
500g of Broad Beans
1 onion, finely chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
One pint of boiling hot vegetable stock
Half a pint of skimmed milk
1 Tablespoon of olive or sunflower oil
Lightly fry the onion and garlic in a tbspn of sunflower or olive oil or less oil if you have a good non-stick pan which we don't.
Add the broad beans and a little of the stock and cook on a high heat for 2 minutes.
Add the rest of the stock and the skimmed milk and cook for 5-10 minutes.
Blitz with a hand held stick blender to the consistency that you prefer and serve.
It may need seasoning with pepper only to make it heart healthy.
Broad Beans are also great cooked with some chunks of Jamon Serrano (Spanish Ham like Italian Parma Ham) . But I don't think that's really heart healthy... Infact I know it's not, as my father in law had a major heart issue a couple of years back and he shouldn't eat it. But he does!
