Greener than Green Fava Bean Hummus

I was watching Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers, then Rick Stein somewhere exotic, then Jamie at Home, balancing a pile of garden and cook books on my knee. Perfect Saturday afternoon, watching the dream. "Instead of living it?" said a little voice from somewhere deep.

Which jolted me out of the armchair, into my gummies, and out into the wonderland at my own back door. Those guys and girls on the telly really inspire me and I do think of them as good friends. But it's easy to be seduced by their gardens, their kitchens, their special dishes, and forget about my own little slice of heaven.

And a little slice it surely is. Overcrowding is accepted here, and companion planting happens because it has to. There's not really enough space to grow a row of anything, so we dot plants around in a lovely tangle, and hope for the best.

I get no more than a dozen Fava pods at a time, and we only get three or four pickings a year. But it's so worth it. These guys grow quietly and mostly unattended over the winter, and they're the first spring crop, so worth a bit of a celebration.

I have waxed on about the marvels of this bean before, but I'm always stopped in my bean-shelling tracks by how much trouble this plant goes to to make the beans comfortable and safe. Their fuzz-lined pods are truly fit for royalty, and each bean then has its own pleather chamber to lounge in. Fabulous.

No wonder they're so pleased with themselves. But it's time to quit lounging and start blanching, just for 30 seconds, in boiling water. If they were old and tough, I'd cook them longer, but these are in their prime, so easy does it.

Now they're looking their wizened worst -- the grey dreaded broad beans of childhood. But slip them out of their pleather coats (eat the pleather if you like, it's good) and discover their greener than greenness.

At this point my mind started wandering back to the TV shows, and I wondered if this hummus could satisfy the 100 mile rule. Without getting out an odometer, I think it's pretty close.

Fava beans: from the back door.

Spring onion: from the back door.

Garlic: it's wild garlic chive season, so I picked some from the weedy path up the back. It's delicately, distinctly garlicy; just the match for such tender beans.

They've also got gorgeous edible flowers. Hard to believe they're considered a weed.

Lemons: how about a handful of sorrell leaves instead? Super lemony, intensely green, and right there outside the back door. Perfect.

Salt: Marlborough, possibly technically out of range, but oh so close!

Olive oil: Martinborough. I'd been looking for a special dish to try a special olive oil called Crescent Blend. Jared from Moon Over Martinborough entertained us with stories about olive oil and blogging at the recent Food Bloggers' Association conference. And he left us with samples of his oil. I've been waiting for just the right moment to crack it open, and this was it. I don't have the proper words to describe how olive oil tastes, but here goes. It's not really oily -- it doesn't clag up your mouth, but seems to dissolve gently and happily. It starts off tasting green and leafy, then you get a long bitter taste -- really good bitter, like radicchio. It's also got some spicy heat in it, so we don't need to add pepper. All up just the oil for this dish.

Gently grind everything together in whatever hand powered grinder you're fond of. I wasn't looking for a uniform paste. More a rough green crush.

Serve on baby lettuce leaves, or on grilled flatbread. And even if you haven't got a TV crew following you around, pretend you have! Eat while walking reverently around your garden, zooming in and out of the vegetables and fruits you've grown. Gaze contentedly across your kitchen at your favourite mixing bowl or that steaming plate of pasta you just made.

With all the celebrity noise it's easy to forget that the dream is right here, right now, and in our own worlds, we are the stars of the show.