What is it about vegetables that makes people dislike them so much?  Particularly green vegetables.  A friend of mine tells me it’s the texture.  Another says the flavor.  Others say the smell.  I’ll never understand.  Cooked right, the veggies can outshine any entrée, and, at the very least, complement it.  There is one way I’ve found my veggie phobic friends will reluctantly eat their greens… in a soup.

Recently, I was faced with a very unusual acquisition from our latest garden swap, homegrown fava beans.  I’ve never cooked them before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.  They were too rare a find not to feature them somehow.  So, I followed my own advice and made a soup.

How to be Neighborly: When in doubt, make soup.

I didn’t have enough Fava Beans to make a soup from just the beans, so I needed to bulk it up with something else.  Given that these were home grown and freshly picked, I wanted to stay true to the green color. That’s when inspiration hit.  I had a ripe avocado on the counter calling my name.  Green?- check. Creamy?- check. Healthy?- check.  I knew the green might be a turn off to some, so I added the quintessential ingredient that is universally loved… BACON.  And that’s how the Favacado Soup came to be.

Favacado Soup

• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/4 onion, chopped
• 1 c shelled fava beans
• 1 small potato (red or golden), pealed and diced
• 1 garlic clove, sliced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tbsp. better than bouillon
• 2 1/2 c water
• 1 ripe avocado
• 1/4 c fresh mint
• 2 eggs, poached
• 2 strips bacon, diced and cooked

Heat the olive oil in a medium pot and cook the onions over medium heat until translucent, about 3-4 minutes. Add the favas, potato, garlic, salt and pepper and cook for a couple more minutes.  Add the bouillon and stir to mix in with the vegetables for about 1 minute.  Add the water and bring to a boil.  Cook over medium high heat for about 10 minutes until the potatoes are tender.  While the soup boils, poach the eggs and cook the bacon.

Scoop the avocado out of its skin into a blender.  Add the mint leaves to the blender.  Pour the hot fava and potato mix into the blender, and blend until smooth.  Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Pour the soup into a bowl, add the egg, and sprinkle with bacon.  Drizzle with olive oil (I used garlic olive oil).  Enjoy the greenness.