A week after returning home, I’m still on a bit of a bread bender. Having polished off the last of my Parisian stash on Friday, I found myself tucking in my desk chair at 5:45 this evening in order to make it to the Union Square Greenmarket before the good people of Bread Alone packed up for the day. Once I had a quarter loaf of their excellent organic French sourdough stashed in my tote, I was free to roam. I told myself I didn’t need anything else, as I still had vegetables left over from last week and another CSA share arrives tomorrow. But a giant bag of fava beans was just three dollars. And wouldn’t some fresh mint (at two dollars for a nicely sized bouquet) be just the thing to make the favas’ green and slightly nutty flavor pop? And who can pass up tender young garlic?

Fava Bean, Mint & Feta Dip

• enough fava beans in pod to fill your salad spinner (Sorry, I have no idea what they weighed.)
• four cloves garlic – the younger, the better
• juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
• 3 tablespoons good olive oil
• small handful of mint leaves
• 1/2 tablespoon Aleppo pepper
• salt and pepper
• 2 ounces feta

1. Set a small pot of water to boil, crack open a cold beer and get to work popping the fava beans out of their pods. The technique is similar to shelling peas. It will get easier as you go, I promise. The beer helps.
2. By the time you shell your final bean, the water should be boiling. Add a generous pinch of salt as well as the beans. Peel the garlic and toss this in as well. Let boil until the beans are tender, approximately five minutes, then strain into a collander and rinse with cold water.
3. Remove the garlic and dump the beans into a food processor. Pulse several times until you have a coarse mixture. Remove approximately half of the beans. Add the garlic, olive oil, lemon zest and juice, mint, Aleppo pepper, and salt and pepper. Puree until smooth, taste and adjust seasoning.
4. Stir in the coarsely ground beans and crumbled feta. 

This would make a great hors d’oeuvre served on small crostini or with pita points for dipping. I stashed about half in the refrigerator for tomorrow’s lunch and ate the rest slathered on toasted slices of that Bread Alone sourdough while watching the sun set from the roof of my building. With the temperature hovering around 90 degrees at 8:00pm, this made an ideal supper.