Green Beans

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summer

Rinse and eat them right out of the box. Oh, you wanted to store them? Ok. Rinse well, dry well, store covered in the refrigerator. These fresh-from-the-farm beans will keep longer than grocery store beans, but they do eventually wilt, and they do eventually start developing black spots. So I like to snap off the tips and go ahead and chop them into whatever size pieces I think I will need, and store them that way. Easy to drop into your next recipe. Stored in a plastic bag with absolutely no moisture, they’ll keep a week. You can also follow standard blanching instructions and then freeze. Or make green bean pickles! Isn’t pickling the answer to everything?

(2023) Thum Mak Tua (Long Bean Salad)

So excited to see green beans because I’ve been wanting to share a no-cook recipe we ran back in July on Lao salads. The source was Ilene Rouamvongsor and you may have met her at one of the Community Farmers Markets where she occasionally does chef demos and shares recipes. I’m giving you a much abridged version of her Thum Mak Tua which is a salad traditionally made with long beans, pounded with peppers, garlic, sugar and shrimp paste and then dressed with two kinds of fish sauce. Ilene would not be pleased with my truncated version (sorry!) but this is a version I can make with just things that are always in my pantry. And it’s delicious.

(2023) Coconut-Dill Salmon with Green Beans and Corn

Can’t resist also passing along this recipe that I ran into at cooking.nytimes.com. This one makes use of dill, corn, cherry tomatoes from this week’s box. Maybe you also have green beans leftover, or tucked into the freezer. Bonus: you can bake it wrapped in foil packages on the grill. The combo with the coconut milk sounds divine.

(2022) Bully Boy’s Teriyaki Sauce

If you’re looking at a behemoth bok choy and wondering what to do with it, turn to Riverview’s collection of recipes – https://grassfedcow.com/ingredient/bok-choy/ – for about two dozen ideas. But … I offer you a new one. I had dinner at Bully Boy Sunday night and my friends enjoyed their salmon teriyaki which is served with baby bok choy drizzled with their teriyaki sauce. It was delicious and it just happens we’re publishing that recipe in the AJC in about two weeks, so I am here to share the basics on that sauce so you can reproduce something like it at home. The bok choy was steamed until completely, meltingly tender, and served with the sauce (and the salmon and some steamed green beans). Use a few of the green onions from your box to make this. This sauce is definitely sweet so you just need a little. But it will keep in your refrigerator for a long time, so use it on other vegetables and proteins.

(2021) Ramen With Charred Scallions, Green Beans and Chile Oil

This one is more involved …. and requires some green onions you may have to pick up at a farmers market. It’s from the New York Times.

It includes a recipe for chile oil, but if you don’t want to go to that trouble, just substitute your favorite store-bought Sichuan chile oil.

(2021) Blistered Green Beans

Have we talked about blistered green beans before? I hope not, because I’ve got a recipe to share. It’s from Alexandra Stafford of alexandracooks.com. You do have a head of garlic left over from a week or so ago? Love her very clear direction on how to make sure this is seasoned the way you’d like and how to get blistered but not burnt beans.

(2021) Summer Vegetables in Spiced Yogurt Sauce

This is also a recipe from the New York Times and totally adaptable for what is in this week’s box. You should swap out vegetables as you prefer. I’ve just been in the mood for Indian food, so this really appealed to me this week. We ran a recipe for Chicken Korma from Aroma Bistro in Roswell a week or two ago and testing that recipe just made me crave Indian spices.

(2021) Spicy Peanut Soba Noodles With Green Beans

I ran into this idea for soba noodles and green beans and since that was a big bag of beans in the box, I’ll probably split them between crudité and this recipe that I found in the Washington Post. It’s also a recipe that lends itself to whatever you have in your pantry. For example, they suggested if you don’t have soba noodles, try another thin noodle, such as vermicelli rice noodles or angel hair pasta. And that sriracha could substitute for the chili-garlic sauce, or that you could just whatever hot sauce you have on hand. And finally, that any mild vinegar could substitute for the rice vinegar called for here.

(2020) Aluma Farm’s Veggie Pickles

Love that the Aluma Farm recipe helps you understand how much brine to make, depending on how many pickles you’re putting up. Really helpful for those of us pickling on the fly.

(2019) Green Goddess Dip with Vegetables and Homemade Pita Chips   

In case you still need some pepper or green bean inspiration, I’ve got a way to enjoy them as raw vegetables with dip. It makes me happy to have a platter of cut up vegetables and dip standing by while we’re sitting here enjoying sunsets at the beach. I’ll make the dip and buy my vegetables from a local farm stand.

(2019) Green Bean Curry

And for dinner next weekend, the Green Bean Curry below. The recipe calls for adding canned kidney beans, and I guess there’s some nutritional value to doing that, but I’ll probably skip the added beans and just go with the contents of the box.

From “Heavenly Vegan Dals & Curries” by Rakhee Yadav. Saw this in an e-blast from The Splendid Table.

(2019) Green Bean and Potato Salad

A recipe from Everyday Food. I’ve got Pine Street Market bacon in the freezer so I’m pulling out a pound to split between this salad and some BLTs.

(2018) Green Beans with Coconut and Black Mustard Seeds

Before green bean season ends, I wanted to share a recipe for the ones in today’s box. I learned it from Gulshan Singh who taught classes in Indian cuisine at the Buford Highway Farmers Market. Sadly, their classes are no more – but they were a wonderful way to enjoy lots of great ethnic recipes.

(2018) Pasta With Green Beans And Potatoes With Pesto

Not sure how many of you check out the New York Times for recipes but today’s e-blast listed this recipe for pasta with green beans and potatoes. Perfect for the contents of this week’s box. I had to share in case you missed it.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6078-pasta-with-green-beans-and-potatoes-with-pesto

(2017) Green Bean Casserole

Green bean casserole, you ask? Yes. This delicious version comes from Everyday Food magazine. Works if you have some green beans left over from last week still sitting in their paper bag in your vegetable bin.

(2017) Green Bean Crispy Sushi Roll

This recipe was submitted by CSA subscriber Silvia Medrano-Edelstein, the chef instructor and founder of Word of Mouth Cooking Club specializing in kid’s gourmet meal-kit prepping camps and specialty events like kiddie mocktails and gingerbread houses. Her recipes don’t include exact measurements, but you can figure it out.

(2017) Pork Larb

I love larb and never think about adding green beans. But seeing the beans in today’s box and then this recipe made me decide to share. It’s adapted from a chicken larb recipe in “Adam’s Big Pot” by Adam Liaw. The rice, chili powder and chile flakes combine to make the equivalent of a Thai seasoning mix. Serve it on lettuce leaves if you wish.

(2017) Bacon Green Beans

Just finished a breakfast story that featured bacon-blueberry waffles so I think I have bacon on the brain.

(2017) Green Beans with Sesame Seeds

One more recipe for green beans and that’s it for me for the year! Don’t remember where this came from, but we like it as a cold salad. Keeps well in the refrigerator.

(2017) Greek-Style Braised Green Beans

Love this recipe from thekitchn.com. Use more or less tomato, according to your taste and how many tomatoes you have on the counter. (You’re not putting those tomatoes in the refrigerator, are you?) And yes, use the cinnamon. Love these long-cooked beans.

(2017) Spicy Pickled Green Beans

There are a couple of pickled green bean recipes. Here’s one more from the food blog Popsugar. If you don’t have all the spices, it’s ok. Just use what’s at hand. And if you just want to turn these into refrigerator pickles, then you can skip the information about sterilizing and processing the jar and just refrigerate after the brine has cooled.

You can multiply this recipe by the number of jars of beans you want to fill.

(2017) Green Bean and Peach Salad

This recipe was in Saveur magazine. I would never have thought of peaches and green beans, but it’s truly delicious. Just as good with basil or parsley as with the oregano.

(2017) Fermented Dill Beans

Time to bring out the pickling recipes. I’m sorry I don’t remember where this one came from, but it’s pretty standard. The notes in the recipe are from the original (whatever that was!) source.

If you want to add a little sugar, that works, too. This one is so easy. No heating, just make a brine and then add the beans and seasoning. You could do the same with spears of squash.

Dry-Fried Green Beans

I have no idea where this recipe came from originally, but it’s a fiery way to enjoy these end-of-season green beans. No Sichuan peppercorns? Just skip them. As a matter of fact, skip the peppercorns and the chilies if you want a milder dish.

Fiery Green Beans

Southern Living came up with this variation on “regular” roasted or sauteed green beans. Delicious.

Braised Beans with Tomatoes, Garlic and Mint

I just saw this recipe on SeriousEats.com this week and I love what the author said:

“If you ask me, people don’t overcook their vegetables often enough. The truth is, vegetables can sometimes be absolutely delicious when cooked until there isn’t a trace of crispness left. In fact, some vegetables practically require long cooking—like these beans braised in tomatoes, which are best only after you’ve cooked them to death.”

Spicy Pickled Green Beans

Adapted from a recipe from Everyday Food. Up the sugar to a tablespoon or a little more, and use either granulated or brown sugar, to make more of a bread-and-butter type pickle. These are refrigerator pickles and they’ll keep for about a month. Yummy with tomato sandwiches. Let them sit for at least 24 hours before you try them.

Warm Cabbage and Green Beans

This dish is a more complicated. It’s adapted from a recipe by Marcus Samuelsson, the Ethiopian-born chef who grew up in Sweden. This is definitely from the Ethiopian side of his heritage. This recipe ran about 2 years ago in the New York Times. Injera is available at the DeKalb Farmers Market. I’ve tried making my own – total failure! This is one time that store bought definitely trumps homemade.

Potato and Green Bean Salad

Today’s box held the first potatoes of the season – always a big hit in our household. With the green beans, tomatoes, zephyr squash and cucumber, it totally looks like summer now in my kitchen.

This recipe is adapted from “Herbivoracious” by Michael Natkin. Got basil pesto on hand, or some other version? Use that.

Turkish-Style Braised Green Beans

And I’ve been waiting to try this recipe that appeared in early August in the New York Times. So glad to see green beans in our box today.

Yes, you can lightly steam your green beans, but sometimes what you really want is a dish of beans that’s been slowly braised with wonderful aromatic companions. I grew up with a dish like this, served over rice pilaf. My mom added cubes of browned beef, but otherwise, this is pretty much her recipe.

Sweet-and-Sour Veggie Pickles

If you have any leftover green beans from last week, they’d work fine in this recipe as well.

Adapted from a recipe that appeared in Southern Living

Makes about 8 cups

Okra, Green Bean and Seafood Stew

This recipe for okra stew is adapted from one in Saveur magazine and is from Senegal. They credit it as a predecessor of Louisiana-style gumbo which makes sense to me, given how much of our Southern cuisine comes from African culture and the cooking of slaves. It takes a good while to cook, which is absolutely typical of West Africa food, but is well worth it. In Senegal, this would be made with eggplant, but I’m substituting the green beans from this week’s box.

Nicoise Salad with Poached Egg and Smoked Paprika

Yes, here’s another reason you need to have smoked paprika in your pantry. This recipe from Carvel Grant Gould of Canoe uses a pinch of smoked paprika. Once you try it you’ll see why our chefs all like to incorporate small amounts into their food.