Recipe(let): Mexican Corn Salad

I make a salad such as this often, and with assorted seasonal ingredients. You could make it with black beans, green beans, peas, even lentils or barley or quinoa. The point is to create a complete protein by combining a legume with a grain: in this case Fava Beans and Corn. The favas were a bit tough as i'd left them on the bush for a while to let everyone mature enough to pick all at once - this might have been nicer with a quick blanch or just fresher favas. This also would have been great with jicama, but i had none on hand. This is a great salad by itself, or as i served it on top of salad for me and hot black beans for the husband. You can make a big batch of it and keep it in the fridge for quick lunches or snacks: it only gets better in time. Here's the recipe as it appears, followed by suggestions for ingredient alternatives of additions:

• Fava beans 
• Corn (about 1 part corn to 2 parts beans)
• Finely chopped spring onion: white and green parts
• Pinch diced cilantro to taste
• Minced garlic
• Dashes cumin, chilly powder, cayenne, salt & pepper
• Light drizzle olive oil
• Heavy drizzle lime juice: 1-2 Tablespoons or more to taste
• Splash raspberry balsamic vinegar

Alternatives/Additions:

• Exchange Fava Beans with Black beans, white beans, pinto beans, lentils, quinoa, or even orzo to change it to a pasta salad (no longer a complete protein)
• Red onions
• Diced fresh hot peppers: serrano, jalapeno, habanero, etc
• Diced fresh bell peppers
• Diced tomato
• Chives
• Jicama
• Change the spices from "Mexican" to "Indian" by adding curry, more cumin, cardamom and subbing mint for the cilantro

Voila. Quick and easy meal. I was actually not so hungry after doing an evening step aerobics class so there is leftover salad waiting for me for lunch today. Not too shabby!

What is your favorite use for fava beans? Do you prefer them fresh or cooked?

Woops, i undercooked the Turkey

This blog is not just a place for my recipes and successes in the garden, but also a place for troubleshooting and recording my shortcomings.

I undercooked the Christmas turkey. It was way bigger than we needed, and i planned on roasting it on a bed of root veggies. That would have been fine, but i went a little crazy with the veggies and they absorbed way too much of the cooking time.  7 hours later and our turkey still wasn't falling off the bone. We still nibbled at the edges, avoiding the less than done inner parts,  but i almost got myself down enough to ruin an otherwise perfect christmas.  Everything else tasted grand though, and as you can see the veggies were soaked in delicious drippings with plenty left over to make some deeelish gravy.

I stuck the gorgeous, but insufficiently heated animal back in the oven on a lower temp, just left it there for a while, turned off the oven and left it, then stuck it in the fridge. Tasted even better the next night with leftover mashed cauliflower, root veggies, gravy and peas.

It turned out alright, just glad i didn't schedule guests to come at a certain time or there would have been hungry fisticuffs.

At least the husband approved!