Our farmshare this week included fava beans and squash blossoms, neither of which I’ve cooked with before. Both require some prep. Fava beans have a two-step shelling process, and you need to remove the pistil or stamen from each squash blossom. (Unless your hands are much smaller than mine, or your blossoms much larger than the ones we had, you will have to rip them down one side in order to do this.)

FreshFarm Share from @freshfarmhstne: fava beans, tart cherries, lamb’s quarter, squash blossoms, basil, fresh garlic. Also picked up round zucchini, peaches, blueberries, and some @zekescoffeedc. #ffmshares #veggies

A photo posted by Alison (@spinstah_gram) on Jul 2, 2016 at 9:05am PDT

I wanted to use the squash blossoms tonight, because I knew they wouldn’t last much longer. I also wanted to use the fava beans right away. Here’s what I wound up making:

Squash blossoms stuffed with a mixture of goat cheese, basil (also from the farm share), salt, pepper, and olive oil. I drizzled them in olive oil and broiled them in the toaster oven for somewhere between 5-10 minutes – basically enough to warm them through. As is the case with anything stuffed with cheese, they were great. Most of the recipes you will find online involve frying them, which I was not interested in doing. This method was recommended in the comments section of a recipe on The Kitchn. The goat cheese we had on hand was the kind with honey, which is delicious and worked well here.

Pasta with fava beans and sausage, from Smitten Kitchen. I used dried ziti, which held the sauce nicely, and my own canned crushed tomatoes, which I drained slightly so I didn’t have to wait for them to cook down. Quite tasty, though of course this does not really showcase the fava beans.