One Great . . . bright green spring salad

When everything fresh and green starts pouring into the farmers markets, it's hard to resist an impulse buy. My bags were already full Saturday morning at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market when I spotted a pile of fava bean pods.

Favas aren't all that common around here, so when you see them, you better grab them. I filled a bag with several big handfuls and then started thinking about what to do with them.

I know to set aside time for favas. They're a strange bean and they take a little more work. First, you have to open the big pods, which can be as long as a wooden ruler, and free the fat beans. They'll have a strange, white-ish appearance. That's the outer skin in the bean. The real bean, as bright green as fresh grass, is inside that skin. To get to it, you drop the shelled beans in boiling water for 2 or 3 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water. Then you squeeze the white casing and the bright bean pops out.

With that much work, it's good to find a way to stretch your favas. I pulled cookbooks off the shelf and finally hit on this one: A very bright, very green salad from "The Food Matters Cookbook," by Mark Bittman.

As it turned out, I also had picked up asparagus and a couple of long stalks of garlic scapes that were so crisp and fresh, I could dice the stalks and use them like asparagus, too. The recipe didn't call for them, but sometimes you have to improvise. Spring is like that.

Fava Bean, Asparagus and Lemon Salad

2 lemons, well-washed
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup olive oil
1 pound fresh fava beans
1 pound asparagus, bottoms of stalks peeled or broken off, cut into 2-inch pieces
1/2 cup chopped, fresh mint

CHOP 1 whole lemon, peel and all (discard seeds and pointed ends). Place in a serving bowl with juice of 2nd lemon, salt and pepper and olive oil. Let stand while you prepare the vegetables.

SHELL the fava beans. Bring a small saucepan of salted water to boil. Add the favas and cook about 2 minutes. Remove from water with a slotted spoon. Drain in a colander and rinse with cold water. Squeeze each bean to remove from the skin. Add to the lemon and oil mixture.

RETURN water to boil and add asparagus. Cook until just tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and rinse, then add to bowl with the favas. Add the mint and toss well to mix. Refrigerate about 2 hours before serving.

YIELD: 4 servings.

Two-timing fava beans

It's officially spring: The fava beans showed up Saturday morning at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market.

OK, OK, you can't think of fava beans without imitating Hannibal Lecter. Go ahead, I'll wait right here. ("F-f-f-f-f-ahvah beans. And a nice chi-ANT-ti.")

Feel better, Clarice? Good, let's continue.

Favas aren't a big crop around here. A few farmers grow them, but usually not in large amounts and never for very long. When I spot a small pile at a stand, I know I had better grab them.

The good thing about favas, besides their jade-like color, is their size. Yes, you have to shell them, but the beans inside are usually as big as the end of your thumb, so you get a nice-size pile for a little less work than shelling smaller peas.

There is a trick to favas, though: You have to shell them twice. First, you pull open each big pod and release the beans. Put the beans in a small amount of salted water and cook them briefly, maybe 5 minutes.

You'll notice they take on a strange, white hue. Welcome to the second shelling. Nature really protected favas, putting them in big, padded pods and then surrounding the actual bean with a thick, translucent skin. You usually can't see it until after you cook them, when it suddenly appears. It's easy to remove, though. Let the beans cool, then just squeeze. The bright green bean will pop out.

You can eat them cool, dressed as a salad, toss them in a salad or serve them warm as a side dish. Since I usually don't find many favas at a time, I use them as an accent. On Sunday night, I made a batch of quinoa and then sauted my peeled favas and a couple of stalks of chopped asparagus in a little olive oil. Then I tossed it with the quinoa as a side dish. The leftovers made a dandy lunch salad, too.

One more thing about favas, though: There is a rare fava allergy called favism. It only occurs in people who have inherited a genetic enzyme deficiency, called glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase. It's most common among people from the Mediterranean and African-Americans. It causes hemolytic anemia, along with symptoms like dizziness, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting. If you serve favas to anyone who has never eaten them, it's worth being aware of it, but it is very rare.

Farmers market finds: Life was a bowl of cherries

What did you find to cook with this weekend? At the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market, I scored fresh favas, very fresh sweet peas, mushrooms, multi-hued skinny carrots, and a bag of tart cherries.

Cherries are a rarity around here. I spot them about once a year, so I know to grab them when I see them. These came from a farm near Kannapolis.

At home, I peeled the favas (a two-step process, if you've never done it) and shelled the tiny peas, enjoying that satisfying plunk-plunk-plunk sound as they fell into my bowl. I sauted the mushrooms, then added the favas, peas and a little cream and braised them together.

I roasted the carrots along with small potatoes, baby turnips and radishes. (Yes, you can roast radishes, something I just recently discovered.)

The cherries called for more handling. I pulled out Thomas Keller's "Ad Hoc at Home" and used it as a guide for a little cherry compote to spoon over my breakfast yogurt and a batch of potted cherries with bourbon and vanilla to tuck in the refrigerator.

And you? What fabulous food finds landed in your life this weekend?