A Spring Feast -- Gluten free, Vegan, dairy free, and full of hopeful spring flavours

We tried yet another organic delivery company this week. I'm a little Groupon slut who has been purchasing the organic box trials whenever they have been available. So far, I like this one best. The food was all beautiful, you could make unlimited substitutions, and they managed to actually weigh everything correctly that was purchased by the pound. Oh, and the customer service was both friendly and helpful.

This week's box brought new adventures in the form of fava bean pods, wild leeks, and collard greens. A trip to T&T on Cherry Street netted some honey mushrooms and some baby king oyster mushrooms, both grown in Burlington by 'Enviro Mushrooms', sans chemicals. And our socca experiment continued ... yes, with sauteed wild leek.

Our menu?

fresh fava beans and wild leeks sauteed in coconut oil with sea salt and pepper
king oyster mushrooms and honey mushrooms sauteed in coconut oil with sea salt and pepper
collard greens simmered in vine tomatoes with coconut oil and sea salt and pepper (yes, there was a theme)
and
socca with minced wild leeks (and coconut oil and sea salt and pepper)

Followed by homemade chocolate ice cream and chocolate power bars.

Yes, a feast indeed.

As for the ingredients and the seasoning, I wanted to let the natural flavours of everything dominate. I don't know if you've ever had king mushrooms, but really, all they want is a little salt and pepper and some coconut oil or butter. Stupendous. As for wild leeks and the fresh fava beans -- what a bright, woodsy, and savoury flavour the leeks have. And the beans are sweet and substantial, and so delicious.

It was a very yummy meal, and super easy. Just wash, chop, and saute in coconut oil, sprinkled with sea salt and pepper.


Fava Beans and Wild Leeks:

Fava beans take a few steps:
1. remove the beans from their strange and fuzzy pods
2. blanch the beans for 1 minute in boiling water, then rinse in cold.
3. slit the tough casing on each bean and squeeze so the bright green inner bean pops out.

The wild leeks are easy:
1. wash
2. remove the roots
3. chop
:)

Finally, throw it all in a large saute pan with coconut oil, and sprinkle with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. You'll want to cook it closed for a few minutes to soften up the leeks, then saute open while stirring etc. It doesn't take long to cook.


King Oyster and Honey Mushrooms:

1. wash the mushrooms
2. cut 'em into large pieces
3. saute in coconut oil with sea salt and pepper until they start to brown in places.

Super simple.


Collard greens and Vine tomatoes

1. roughly chop the tomatoes, and begin to saute them in a large pan with coconut oil
2. wash and chop the collard greens, and add them to the tomatoes in the pan
3. season with sea salt and pepper
4. cover and allow to cook for 10-20 minutes

that's it.


Finally:

Socca!

Using the same socca recipe as last time (but with less salt), I reserved some of the sauteed leaks, which I then minced and added. Hmm. I think I also added some marjoram for fun.
I baked the socca much the same way as last time, and served it in squares with the meal.

I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot of socca at dinner ...


As for the chocolate power bars, the reviewers have said such things as:
'Holy crap.'
'This tastes like fudge.'
'This tastes like truffles.'
and
'What's that over there?' thereby creating a diversion so they could abscond with the entire box. Check out the recipe, and try 'em yourself.

And as for the ice cream, it was made using raw milk and raw cream we got from a very nice farmer, along with copious amounts of raw cacao, a little coconut sugar, some ground vanilla bean, a pinch of sea salt, and a little too much ceylon cinnamon. Less next time. Delicious!