Fava Bean Crostini

We have had the most amazing crop of fava beans already this year! We've harvested about a pound each weekend for the past 3 weeks, which is amazing considering about the only other thing even close to ready this early in spring is radishes.

It's a variety called Negreta from Territorial Seed that I planted in the fall, and the plants grew to about 6 inches, then lived through the winter like that. They started growing taller in February and in March already had pods. The beans are just getting big inside now.

My favorite thing to do with them so far is this simple mash on crostini. You just shell the beans, then boil them for a few minutes and chop them roughly and toss them with olive oil and salt. You can also peel off the skin from around each bean, but it's fine to eat, so I just leave it on. Honestly, if you harvest a pound of pods, only 1/4 of the weight is actual beans, so I don't want to throw away any more than I have to!