Spring Green Vegetable Salad With Pecorino & Eggs

Fruit & vegetable markets have an air of healthiness around it.  I feel like if you inhale the air while in the midst of all the beautiful greens, reds, yellows & oranges, you yourself will absorb all the vitamins they keep inside them then cancel out the bad food you had been eating.  Just a thought.  And hope.  I'm not a perfect health food eater but I am trying my best to recompense for the unhealthy way I had been stuffing myself with bad food when I was younger.  That and to guide my kids to healthy eating. 

I do not run a stringent kitchen.  I do allow my kids (including myself and my husband) to have patatine (potato chips) once in a while because what is life without having fun?  On rare occasions, we all sit down together and enjoy a tableful of an assortment of chips and we call it patatine night.  Kids have fun, we have fun but our bodies sigh with complaints.  At least the kids wouldn't have spurts of wanting chips after that. 

After coming from markets with fresh produce to prepare, salads are foremost in my mind.  This is a plate of spring greens that I blanched.  The greenness, freshness and crunchiness are not lost and the vegetables are in their prime.  It can be simply eaten with just the eggs and the basic Italian dressing of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar but we found that the pecorino cheese and fresh basil helped boost the flavor very much.  If you can add another kind of cheese that's strong like pecorino, do it because it keeps the blend of flavors rounder.

Let's indulge ourselves with healthy food sometimes.  Our bodies will thank us for it. 

Spring Green Vegetable Salad With Pecorino & Eggs

Ingredients:
Serves 4

•  big bowl of ice cubes for blanching
• 100 g. snow peas
•  200 g. asparagus
• 1 kilo fava beans, shelled
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts
• fresh basil leaves
• pecorino, shaved
• 4 eggs, medium soft to hard boiled (depending on how you want them), quartered
• balsamic vinegar
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt 
• pepper

Directions:

1. Boil some salted water in a pot for blanching the vegetables.  Prepare also a big bowl of ice cubes to be used to blanch the vegetables.  When the water boils, drop the snow peas.  Cook for 6 minutes.  After 6 minutes, strain them then drop them in the bowl of ice to stop the cooking. When they are cold, strain then transfer to another bowl.
2. In the same pot of boiling water, drop the asparagus and cook for 5 minutes.  After 5 minutes, strain them then drop them in the bowl of ice to stop the cooking.  When they are cold, strain then transfer to another bowl.
3. In the same pot of boiling water, drop the fava beans and cook for 3 minutes.  After 3 minutes, strain them then drop them in the bowl of ice to stop the cooking.  When they are cold, strain then transfer to another bowl. Remove the outer skin one by one by pinching the beans lightly.  
4. Put together the blanched vegetables, pine nuts, basil and pecorino on a plate.  Top with the eggs.  Season with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper & balsamic vinegar.