Music and Cats

When I first began trying to eat locally several years ago, one of the foods that I had trouble finding from local farmers was dried beans. As I’m an omnivore (complete with dilemma), I don’t rely on beans for protein, but I like beans. And I knew that farmers out in eastern Washington’s Palouse grow beans. Perhaps I wasn’t looking in the right places, but there were no local dried beans anywhere I looked. A couple of years ago, I found a farmer at the Ballard Farmers’ Market selling dried pinto beans. The next year, there were cannellini and black turtle beans — both fresh in their pods and dried — at several farmers’ stalls. And just last month, I was delighted to see garbanzo beans at Alvarez Organic’s stall.

I wouldn’t say that garbanzos (aka chickpeas) are my favorite beans (I have a special place in my heart for black-eyed peas and refried beans), but given my choice, I’ll usually choose garbanzos. And if all garbanzos were as nutty, sweet and creamy as those I cooked this week, I might give up other beans altogether. (I’d have to have tahini, though, as hummus is one of my favorite ways to eat garbanzos.)

For this week’s One Local Summer meal, I cooked another garbanzo bean favorite: Garbanzos with Greens. I don’t really have a recipe for this, but here’s what you do: Heat a little olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Add a chopped sweet onion, a few chopped garlic scapes, and the chopped stems of one bunch of rainbow chard. Sauté a few minutes, until vegetables are just tender. Add one or two ripe tomatoes, chopped, with their juices, and one dried hot red (Fresno) pepper. Simmer until tomatoes start to break down. Add 1 1/2 cups cooked garbanzo beans. Season to taste with cumin, coriander, turmeric and black pepper. (I didn’t measure, but I’m guessing I used between 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of each.) Simmer for about 10 minutes. Add the chard leaves, sliced into strips, and simmer until greens have wilted to the texture you like. If it looks like you don’t have quite the ratio of beans to greens that you want, you can add more greens (I used some mizuna, also from our CSA box.) If you don’t use salt (and we don’t), add a splash of cider vinegar just before serving to brighten the flavors.

In European fashion, a simple green salad followed the main course. I tossed tiny arugula leaves from our CSA box in an almost-local vinaigrette, made of cider vinegar, honey, mustard, hazelnut oil and a little olive oil. I’ve not found a locally-made Dijon-style mustard, and have been considering making my own. What I’ve been using recently is alder-smoked Walla Walla onion mustard from Puget Sound Foods, which is headquartered in Seattle. I can’t vouch for all of their ingredients, though they do describe their mustard seed as being from Washington. (If only I could get my hands on some of that mustard seed!)

As usual these days, dessert was just a bowl of cherries. Mmmmm…

Alberg Farm: cherries
Alvarez Organics: garbanzo beans, spring onions
Billy’s Organics: tomatoes
Holmquist Orchards: hazelnut oil
Local Roots Farm: garlic scapes, chard, mizuna, arugula
Rockridge Orchards: cider vinegar, honey
Tonnemaker Farms: dried hot red pepper (Fresno)
Washington: alder-smoked Walla Walla onion mustard
California: olive oil
Far away: black pepper, cumin, coriander, turmeric

Tags: 3 Comments