A Taste of Summer: Part II

In my first Taste of Summer post a week or so ago, I brought you a zucchini and tomato recipe inspired by the remainders of our weekly vegetable delivery. (Let's just pretend I knew at the time it was the beginning of a series, OK?)  This week, I want to share with you a recipe inspired by the first time I'm cooking out of this week's delivery.  

I made this Wednesday evening after returning home from a visit to the farm.  It is so incredibly hot during the day that I'm not doing much cooking and am "behind" a bit on using this week's goodies.  Luckily, most of the produce this week will "keep" a few days.  

First on our cooking agenda was "Zipper Cream Peas".  These arrived in the pod and a brief description and sample recipe came along a bit later from the folks at Rhonda's Food.  These peas are actually beans and, once shelled, look a bit like northern beans.  I started shelling the beans while watching the Olympics and surprisingly my kids jumped in immediately and loved doing it.  They did a great job.  B had a very discerning eye about tossing out a couple that didn't quite meet standards.  We had a great time.

I reviewed the recipe in the newsletter, but we didn't have all the ingredients so I experimented based on the normal components of bean recipes.  This was only my second time really cooking fresh (not dried) beans, but we love experiments and this one turned out well.  It is very flexible, but below is the general outline if you want to try our next taste of summer.

Our Summer Beans

Ingredients:

5 slices bacon - cut into roughly 1/2 -1 in pieces

1/2  medium onion, chopped

1 sm. carrot, chopped

3 sprigs of rosemary (maybe roughly 3/4 tsp of dried chopped rosemary)

3 sprigs sage, chopped (or maybe 1/2 tsp of dried ground sage)

2 basil leaves

3 cups of chicken broth (or more as needed)

1 tsp salt, to taste

1/2 tsp pepper 

1 lb beans -- here fresh Zipper Cream Beans - you could use dried beans and just cook them a bit longer (possibly pre-soak if that is your normal habit).

Fry bacon over medium heat for 5 minutes or until fat begins to render out.  Add Onion and carrots to the bacon and  cook slowly over low-medium heat for 10 or more minutes until the onions are translucent and everything is tender.  Add the chicken broth, beans, herbs, and salt and pepper to taste.  Simmer over low heat until tender.  This was roughly an hour, but might will likely take a bit longer with dried beans.  Remove the by leaves and enjoy warm, preferably with cornbread.

Note:  From a texture standpoint, I would probably have preferred chopping the rosemary v. using the springs as there ended up being a lot of spears of rosemary once they fell off the central stem.  The taste wasn't too strong, just the "feel" of all the pieces.

I simmered this in the evening in the cooler part of the day and our house smelled delicious.  I hope your summer tastes delicious and I'd love to hear about which recipes you are enjoying.