CSA PSA: Recipe ideas for fava beans, chard, pole beans, garlic scapes

The wife and I joined a CSA this year (Harvest Astoria). We’ve managed to cook through most of our haul each week (we’re in the third week right now), with the help of some good recipes. I figured since I’ve collected these anyway, I might as well share with all three of my readers.

I should note that Harvest Astoria also publishes a recipe exchange on its blog, which is quite useful.

Garlic Scapes

I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be getting garlic scapes in our weekly share. This is the only item that has rolled over into the next week so far. Only because we weren’t too fond of it in garlic scape pesto, which seems to be the one recipe all the foodos out there wet their pants over every season.

• Garlic Scape Pesto … I made this one. First time I’ve ever made this stuff. We ate it on pasta. I found it to be a bit too spicy and aggressive, though I’ve read it mellows with time. I suppose we’ll find out when we defrost our leftover scape pesto in The Future
• Another Garlic Scape Pesto (Plus some other suggestions, though no real recipes to go along with those suggestions)
• White Bean Dip with Garlic Scapes: Meg Cotner from We Heart Astoria recommended this one to me over on Google+
• Garlic Scape Tart … This looks kind of interesting
• Pickled Garlic Scapes: Angrywayne suggested doing this. It might be our solution to our growing collection of scapes
• Other ideas: My buddy Minty suggested using them as a bed for roasting a fish on. Says it looks beautiful and tastes good, too. I’m also considering cooking them whole on pizza

Swiss Chard

• Basic Sautéed Swiss Chard: This uses just the leaves. Reserve the stalks for something else … maybe …
• Sautéed Swiss Chard Ribs with Cream and Pasta … I made this and the one just above tonight. The chard rib recipe is killer rich. Watch it! It’s good, though. Damn.
• Cream Grits and Chard: Bookmarking this one. The wife loves grits
• Lidia Bastianich’s Swiss Chard and Crostata: This one sounds good, too
• Chard with Potatoes and Tomatoes

Fava Beans

• Grilled Fava Beans: Fava beans are apparently a pain in the ass to cook. I wouldn’t know. The first and only time I’ve cooked them (so far) was after reading this recipe. You eat them like edamame, first popping them out of their pods and then slipping them out of their whitish skins. Makes for messy fingers. Lick them clean, if you’re among people who don’t care about your heathen ways
• Fava Bean and Brown Rice Salad: This is probably good if you want to poop. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t made it yet
• Mushroom Risotto with Asparagus and Fava Beans: Michael Natkin used to write a vegetarian column for SE, which I thought was spectacular. I miss that guy. This recipe looks promising

Pole Beans (Romano Beans)

Our CSA labeled the beans we got as “pole beans,” but I could not find that many recipes for “pole beans.” It wasn’t until I saw them called Romano beans that a world of recipes opened up to me…

• Grilled Pole Beans: Heck, the grilled fava beans were such a hit (with me anyway), that these seem like they’d be a good variation on the theme
• Garlicky Romano Beans: Looks simple yet flavorful, with its rosemary-infused olive oil and breadcrumbs
• Braised Romano Beans
• Zuni Romano Beans: I’ve never eaten at the SF restaurant Zuni. But I have heard GREAT things. I’m clipping this recipe to try against that hype. Warning: This takes a while