Category Archives: bits of Food

Yum. Eating, drinking, cooking or dining out: it is all here. In the summertime I’ll have some great pictures from a local farm share and discuss recipes that have worked for me. I’m a cook not a chef, so I borrow heavily from other sources. I make no claims to the originality of any recipe and I’ll point you toward the source when I can find it.

Thanks for reading.

Fantastic Fava with Ricotta

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Fresh fava beans are such a rare treat I really wasn’t sure what to do with them when I found over a pound packed into my CSA box this week. I’ve blanched them in the past and just dressed them with salt and olive oil for a quick snack but this time I hoped for something more.

A quick search online suggested that fava might pair well with ricotta in a number of dishes. I picked up some Iggy bread prepared as toast in house at Central Bottle in Cambridge to use as the base for my crustini. It was an indulgent shortcut but saved me the trouble before a long commute home.

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Prepping the fava beans involved a three step process. First blanch the fresh pods by boiling for a few minutes and then transferring them to an ice bath. Next remove the individual beans from the pods. Then finally, squeeze out the brilliant green fava beans from inside of the outer shell that protects each one. These inner layer fava beans will be almost flat and separate easily into two halves.

Assemble the crustini by scooping on the ricotta, then layering with fava beans. I was fortunate to have fresh basil in my box this week as well so I chopped up some of that and tossed it over each crustini. After trying a bite I found that it needed something more so I drizzled each one with olive oil, sprinkled on some salt and cracked black pepper over top… Voila!

Note: the olive oil was a great idea in the end but retrospectively I should have reached deeper into the cupboard and pulled out the good EVOO. This dish is so simple that each flavor really stands out and the best quality olive oil will make a difference.

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Toward a better hot dog

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I can’t imagine the 4th of July without a hot dog. Increasingly however, I see this staple of the American grill get passed over at cookouts and derided as unhealthy mystery meat. With an impromptu gathering for the holiday suddenly upon me I went looking for a hot dog that would maintain the traditional taste but hopefully be less processed and have less suspicious contents.

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I found these purportedly healthy dogs at my local market, but must admit I had my doubts. I expected that I’d either find them too “healthy” tasting or I’d find myself duped into an marketing gimmick from Ballpark.

With regard to health claims I can only pass on what is stated by the manufacturer, which promises no nitrates or nitrites in these “all beef” hot dogs.

For taste though… These hot dogs met my standard for a traditional American grilled hot dog. I served them on split top New England style buns with some spicy mustard and like Proust’s madeleine, the flavor and texture transported me back to the summer days of my youth. There was nothing funny about them and they grilled up nice and easy with striated blackened goodness.

Today’s dogs were just supermarket bought Ballpark brand’s “Parks Finest”, which I’d expect are probably widely distributed. If you happen to be local to Boston though I also like the house made sausages at Karl’s Sausage Kitchen, one of the rare German food stores in this area.

Happy 4th of July.