What should a girl blog about when she is very loyal to one knitting project that is not a very photgenic big blob these days:

(The colours are quite off in this photo, the yarn I am currently knitting is more like a very rich red wine mixed with purples).

I wanted to tell you about our trip to Idyllwild, California last weekend, where we celebrated our anniversary and show you some pretty birds we spotted on the way back home but the soup that is now cooking on my stove won the spotlight.

It is a fresh Fava Beans, Peas and Pearl Barley soup and what made it blog worthy was the process of getting to the part of the Fava Bean that went into my soup! As the idea to blog about it came only when we saw those lovely beans, we had to take the photos in reverse so you will have to excuse our garbage can!

I found the recipe for this soup in an Israeli cookbook called: Haim Cohen & Eli Landau Mevashlim = Cooking (male plural) – the name in English as it appears in the book: Haim Cohen & Eli Landau’s Cook Book. I like this cook book because it is arranged by vegetables and has the most beautiful photos in it and also (probably mainly) because anything I tried from it turned out delicious.

I never cooked Fava Beans before, I don’t know why, In the back of my mind I have some reservation about them but as hard as I try, I can’t remember what it is!

In the chapter about these beans you can find instructions how to clean the fresh beans: they tell you that it is quite easy to take the beans out of the pods

but in order to get rid of the thin skin you need to put the beans in boiling, slightly salted water and let them boil for one minute, then strain them and after that it is quite easy to peel this skin.

I opened the first pod and found in it a light green bean that didn’t seem to me to have any thin skin on it. I called Joe to have a second opinion, he looked, opened another pod and said he can’t see anything either but we better do as instructed and see what happens. Instead of going back to his desk he brought the garbage can and helped me open the shells. After awhile he said the pods are quite sensual (no wonder he decided to volunteer and help me,,,,) and he was quite right. the pods are large, easy to open, feel cushiony and have an inner white layer that looks like very soft fur. While we were peeling, I told Joe these beans are really spoiled, look at the tender soft shelter they grow in!

I followed the instructions in the book and after the boiling we found out that the light green outer part of the bean is actually a skin and not so thin at all:

Look what we found inside those skins:

I think there really is something very sensual in these little beauties!

And the soup you ask?

Suffice is to say that I am not sure we have enough soup for lunch tomorrow; I ate one bowl and no, we didn’t have any company for lunch today! My man is a well known lover of soups in general and yummy new ones in particular.