Tag Archives: green beans

Green Bean Salad

Posted on by Erin

I really thought this dish would be a big winner with the hungry masses at the dinner table. They like every ingredient in it–green beans? Check. Hard-boiled eggs? Double check. Pickles? Check. So I was really surprised when we had to bribe them with dessert to finish their veggies.

The Sweetie Pie enjoyed his serving, and finished the Pickle’s serving (who decided that having dessert wasn’t worth the price of eating his beans). I’ve come to rely on my nose to “taste” these recipes for me, since my diet restrictions don’t allow me to eat eggs or mayo. My olfactory senses gave it a thumbs up, so I’m not sure what went wrong. But I present it here as a dish that pleased the adults at the table, if not the kiddos.

I came up a little short on mayo and substituted some plain yogurt. It worked great. I don’t think I’d go so far as to substitute all the mayo with yogurt, but if you’re wanting to cut calories, you could get away with swapping out part of it.

I also used my french cut green beans here, since I still had a bag in the freezer. They worked out nicely.

And I chose to use rice vinegar, since the recipe doesn’t specify which vinegar to use. I thought the little bit of sweetness would be a nice addition.

Plan to Eat users, click on the recipe title to import the ingredient list into your account.

Green Bean Salad

Source: More with Less by Doris Janzen Longacre (adapted)

Ingredients

  • 3 cups cooked green beans, cut into 1″ pieces
  • 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
  • 1 medium organic onion, diced
  • 1 large dill pickle, chopped
  • 2 Tbs vinegar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2⁄3 cup mayonnaise

Method

For instructions, see page 254 in More with Less by Doris Janzen Longacre **

** While it’s technically legal to repost recipes, we don’t feel it’s ethical to post copyrighted recipes from the same source for weeks at a time. I’m providing the ingredient list to use in creating a shopping list. We here at the Plan to Eat blog apologize for any inconvenience. If you don’t already own the cookbook, and don’t wish to buy it, most libraries have a copy on their shelves. Thanks for your understanding.

Pakistani Kima

Posted on by Erin

Friends, the days are getting dark early, and by the time we sit down to dinner the sun has set and the light has gone. What does this mean to you? It means that until the light starts returning (or until a fancy flash shows up in my mailbox), you’ll have to endure lackluster food photography. My apologies. On to the recipe…

I confess to being a little disappointed with this one. But my family really enjoyed it, and it gave us a low-cost meal with plenty of leftovers, so I still count it worthwhile.

I was a little confused by the “2 cups cooked tomatoes”. Was I supposed to reduce the tomatoes before adding them? Make a sauce? I ended up using some of my frozen tomatoes (actually, it was quite a bit more than 2 cups that I used), peeled and chopped. They get so mushy after being frozen that I figured it was just as good as cooking them. You could just as easily use canned tomatoes, or tomato sauce.

I also used both peas and green beans (again, a bit more than 2 cups). Our family likes the extra veg.

Serve over brown rice, and top with unsweetened coconut if desired.

Pakistani Kima

Source: More with Less, by Doris Janzen Longacre

Ingredients

  • 3 T coconut oil
  • 1 cup organic onion chopped
  • 1 clove garlic minced
  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1 T curry powder
  • 1 1⁄2 tsp salt
  • pepper
  • dash each cinnamon ginger, turmeric
  • 2 cups cooked tomatoes
  • 2 potatoes diced
  • 2 cups frozen peas or green beans

Method

See More with Less, page 131

 

Green Beans with Orange Allspice Glaze

Posted on by Erin

I know that photo doesn’t excite you. But I assure you, this is an exciting recipe. When you’re sitting down to your meal on Thursday, so tired from cooking that you can barely eat, do you really want to be bargaining with your five-year-old about eating his beans before he can have pumpkin pie? Yeah. Me neither.

Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. My kids say these beans taste like candy, and even ask for seconds.

Not only do they taste yummy, but they come together in a jiffy. If you prep the beans the day ahead, and mix up your sauce beforehand, you’ll have them on the table in less time than it takes the kids to get washed up.

For the month of November we’ve been talking allergen-friendly Thanksgiving dishes. Here’s the complete round-up, just in case you missed something:

Add a turkey (make sure it’s gluten-free) and a fruit pie with an almond meal crust and, my friends, you have just put together an allergen-friendly Thanksgiving feast. And I assure you that the allergen-eaters won’t miss the gluten and dairy.

Green Beans with Orange Allspice Glaze

Source: long forgotten, but maybe it was this one?

Serves: 6

Ingredients

  • 1 pound fresh green beans
  • 1⁄2 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice
  • 2 Tbs dry sherry
  • 1 tsp maple syrup
  • 1⁄8 tsp ground allspice
  • 1⁄4 tsp salt
  • black pepper
  • 1 tsp arrowroot powder (or other thickener)

Method

  1. Rinse and trim the green beans. Steam in a vegetable steamer until tender, about 5-7 minutes.
  2. Combine the orange juice through the pepper in a small saucepan and heat. Mix the arrowroot powder with 1 Tbs of water. When the orange juice mixture is simmering, whisk in the arrowroot mixture. Cook for only a minute or two longer, until the sauce is smooth and slightly thickened.
  3. Place the beans in a serving dish and toss with the sauce.

The Busy (or Lazy) Mom’s Guide to Food Preservation

Posted on by Erin

I know the thrills of garden produce are gone when my kiddos start groaning every time they see me chopping zucchini or green beans. The tomatoes they never seem to tire of, but they seem to lose enthusiasm for everything else by mid-September.

I’ve spent about ten years experimenting with different ways of preserving my garden bounty. Early on I really enjoyed making up different jams, salsas, compotes and chutneys. I still enjoy making those, but as the years passed and the demands of home and family compound I look more for the utilitarian methods that require very little time and effort. Here are my favorites. You will need only a few basic supplies:

  • shredder (a food processor works well, but you can do it by hand if you prefer)
  • steamer (this can be as simple as a colander set into a big pot)
  • lots of zip-top freezer bags in whatever size you prefer
  • permanent marker for labeling your goodies
  • some freezer space (I know! This is the toughest one for me, too.)

Zucchini is always on my list of end-of-summer veggies to process. Shred the zucchini using a coarse shredding blade on your food processor. Measure into quart-size plastic freezer bags, label and freeze. I like to freeze zucchini in one-cup portions, but if you have a favorite recipe that calls for a different amount then freeze that much in each bag.

If you really want to you can draw out some of the water before freezing by salting and squeezing your shreds. But honestly I never do this. I let it drain after thawing and haven’t had problems with it.

Tomatoes I used to have a complicated process of peeling, chopping, and canning my tomatoes so that I could use them throughout the winter. I would usually do a batch of tomato sauce, too, which required me to get out my foodmill and spend lots of time boiling off extra water from the tomatoes. No longer! Last year a friend of mine and I were working together to put up some veggies. She had several bags-ful of tomatoes at her house and didn’t know what to do with them until we could get together. I mentioned that I’d read somewhere that you could freeze them whole and suggested we try that. Friends, I have not looked back!

After thawing from the freezer, the skins slipped off so easily and they were a piece of cake to chop. You wouldn’t want to use these in a salad or something fresh like that, but they are tasty and easy to use in soups, chili and the like.

I recommend spreading your tomatoes on a cookie sheet and popping the tray in the freezer. Once they’re frozen, drop them into a zip-top freezer bag, label and freeze. If you just pop them all in a bag and freeze them that way you will have a solid chunk of tomatoes and will have a hard time getting one or two out without all the others.

Green Beans I like to do a quick blanch in the steamer and then freeze. This year I’m “frenching” my beans before I freeze them. My family really enjoyed this method of Sally’s and this will make my freezer to table time even faster.

Cut your beans into whatever length you want. Get your steamer going and steam the beans briefly, about three minutes is all you need. Rinse them with cold water and spread out on a towel to cool and dry. Drop into a zip-top freezer bag, label and freeze.

Carrots I handle the same way as my beans. Chop or shred into whatever size you want. Drop them briefly into a steamer (again, three minutes should do it). Rinse with cold water. Spread onto a towel to let them cool and dry. Bag them up and freeze.

Peaches, Plums and other Stone Fruits freeze well. I usually do one small batch of jam or preserves and then freeze the rest. Because one the fruit is in my freezer, it’s already prepped and I can easily make another batch of jam in the middle of January, when it’s not so gorgeous outside. For all of these fruits, simply remove the stone (for plums or apricots, I cut them in half, but peaches get cut into eighths). Plums get dropped straight into a bag and then into the freezer. The peaches I steam briefly, let them cool and dry, and then freeze them in freezer bags. If I’m feeling ambitious I will peel my peaches first, but really it’s not neccessary.

I’ve read that you can freeze peaches whole (just like I described for tomatoes above), but haven’t tried this method. I’m so curious though, and the next bumper crop of peaches we get I’m going to give it a shot.

Berries aren’t usually on my list since we tend to just eat them up straight out of the garden. But on the occasions that I’ve needed to, I spread them out on a cookie sheet (so they don’t stick together) and put the sheet in the freezer. Once they’re frozen put them into a zip-top bag, label and freeze.

I’m curious to know what your preferred methods are? Do you have any simple preservation tips that I don’t know about? Please share with the rest of us in the comments!

Stir Fry Green Beans with Cashews

Posted on by Erin

Start This Recipe 30 minutes before you want to eat it

Dinner Table Rating
1 thumb per family member

Cook’s Rating Accessibility Ease Affordability
Accessibility of ingredients, ease of preparation, and affordability

Those green beans just don’t give up. I finally told the kiddos to just stop picking them. We’ll let the ones that are left dry and use them as seed for next year’s crop. So this may just be our last recipe of the season featuring green beans as the stars.

I have to say that even though I was doubtful at first about Sally’s “frenching” method, and even though I was a little annoyed that it took a bit more time and energy, I really, really like the results. And so does my family. The kiddos like that the beans are easier to chew and in smaller pieces. I think the grown-ups like that too, but we’re too busy trying to set a good example of how-to-eat-your-dinner-without-complaining that we won’t say it.

I confess to having trouble “crisping” my cashews. I’ve posted before about Sally’s fabulous method of soaking and “crisping” nuts and seeds. I’ve used it regularly on my nuts and love the results with all of them except cashews. They seem to come out kind of mushy. Does anyone else have this problem? Any suggestions I should try?

This dish was a winner in our house. I wanted it to be a main dish, so I served it over brown rice and put half of a hard-boiled egg on top of each dish. You could also try it with some marinated beef (I think ground or thinly sliced steak would both be tasty). It also gets all three stars for accessibility of ingredients, ease of preparation, and affordability.

Stir Fry Green Beans with Cashews (Nourishing Traditions, page 371)

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds string beans French cut
  • 1 cup crispy cashews (p 515) chopped
  • 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tsp fresh ginger grated
  • 1⁄4 cup naturally fermented soy sauce
  • 1 cup water, orange juice, or chicken stock
  • 2 tbsp arrowroot mixed with 2 tbsp water
  • 1 tsp raw honey
  • 2 tsp toasted sesame oil
  • 2 cloves garlic mashed (optional)
  • 1⁄2 tsp dried rosemary

1. Combine ginger, soy sauce, water or stock, honey, sesame oil, garlic and rosemary. Mix thoroughly with a wire whisk.

2. French cut your green beans if desired. Heat olive oil in a large saute pan or wok. Stir fry the beans until just tender, about 5 minutes.

3. Add cashews and the sauce mixture and bring to a boil. Add the arrowroot mixture and simmer until sauce thickens and all the beans are well coated.

If you can’t find arrowroot, just use some other thickener. I use potato starch, but you could use cornstarch or even a bit of flour. Each of these thickeners gives a slightly different flavor, but they accomplish the same purpose. I let mine simmer for about 10 minutes before calling it done.