Eric and Rich came up for a visit tonight, with food from their CSA share and the will to cook at home. Their loot included fava beans, onion, yellow squash, zucchini and a melon…and a fabulous bottle of malbec, one of my favorite reds. We used all but the fruit and the wine in a risotto:

Risotto recipe

Sauté the summer squash with chopped garlic scapes in EVOO and set aside.

Clean and blanch the fava beans, peel the skin and then sauté in some EVOO with finely chopped parsley and salt until soft.

Sauté chopped onion in EVOO until translucent.

Add to the pan a handful of carnaroli rice per person and stir to coat.

Add copious amounts of white wine and reminisce about all the great Pittsburgh risottos.

Add homemade chicken broth in ladels until the rice is almost cooked.

Add the sautéed vegetables with some some zucchini flowers, and cook several minutes more. Remove from heat, add pecorino romano and serve.

On the way to the kitchen, we stopped down to my garden and found lots of zucchini flowers and several ready-to-pick zucchine! Sharing the ‘first’ harvest with them augurs a summer of fresh food, right?