Green Things

It's not easy being green sometimes. I had such high hopes for this big pile of fresh fava beans that a friend from work gave me. I also had peas, lemons, white wine, and a little cream. And some pasta. Should have been all the makings for a perfect summer meal, right?

Well who are we kidding? Summer in the Bay area is all about bleak, grey skies. And bleak about sums up the end result after all my time spent tirelessly shucking the fava beans and slipping each little bugger from its skin. I just really don't know how to make a cream sauce, as it turns out. And I don't know how to fake it either.

As it happens, I guess I'm good at making grey goop, because after sauteing the favas & peas with a little garlic & olive oil, and adding some splashes of white wine, lemon juice and half & half, I decided it might be good to puree some of the mixture to make a sauce. Except it didn't make a sauce, it made something more like the consistency of... goop.

So I added some pasta water and kept on pureeing. And despite my efforts, it never really became sauce. But after all this work, I couldn't waste it. So onto the pasta it went. I wouldn't call it a BAD dinner, but I wouldn't exactly call it good either. Oh well, I guess they can't all be winners. Note to self: next time, follow a recipe.



There was a consolation prize however. I ventured out into the garden after dinner and noticed the kale plants are getting quite hardy, especially now that we've successfully beaten the slugs, with a little help from iron phosphate slug bait. Wish I'd discovered the stuff before the slimy jerks managed to eat half the garden, but better late than never. Just looking at this kale, I'm already feeling confident that tomorrow's dinner will be much better than tonight's. Some kinds of green are easy after all, and thank goodness for that.