Seasonal cooking: May and June grilling

I really like to grill. I grill or smoke nearly everything I can get my hands on: meat, fish, seafood, and all kinds of vegetables. Now, at the end of May/beginning of June, the weather is gradually getting better, and it is the beginning of grilling season, which makes me super excited and makes my grill work overtime.

So, here are couple of recipes for grilling season.

Grilled Fava beans

Fava beans are green beans similar to edamame. I usually eat them raw, but this time I tried something different. According to a farmer who grows them, they can be grilled, and this is how you do it:

1. Wash fava beans, cut off the ends and put them in a container with a lid or into a ziplock bag.

2. Add 1 cup of italian dressing, or any other dressing you like: soy sauce, teriyaki, french dressing or even just olive oil with a little bit of salt and pepper. Close the lid and shake, so that all the beans are covered with the dressing. Refrigerate overnight.

3. Take out of fridge and grill on medium heat for about 1 minute on each side until they are slightly brown.

Enjoy!

Grilled Garlic scapes

Garlic scapes are green stalks with a small bulbils at the end. They appear on garlic plants from the end of May until mid June. If left untouched, they will turn into flowers and eventually into seeds. They also will suck energy from the garlic plant which will result in a smaller garlic bulb. For this reason, farmers usually cut them off. But, as it turns out, garlic scapes are delicacies by themselves.

They tend to be more tender when they are younger, so you can eat them raw, add them to salads, or garnish other dishes with them. They taste more or less like garlic, maybe less spicy.

More mature and less tender scapes can be cooked, sauteed, or grilled.

To grill garlic scapes just sprinkle olive oil and a pinch of salt on them and grill them until well charred and tender. Yum!

But hurry up! Their season is really short. Don’t miss it!