Swiss Green Beans

This recipe is from Mollie Katzen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook and everyone at our home loved it. I am posting the recipe as we made it, which is just slightly different from Mollie's recipe. BE SURE to remember that if you make this ahead of time to let it marinate, you don't put the almonds, or the vinegar and lemon juice on until the last minute, so that you won't end up with gray colored green beans! Makes 4-6 servings.

1.5 lbs fresh green beans, cleaned and trimmed
1/4 C olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried tarragon
1 tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp salt, or to taste
black pepper to taste
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 C minced fresh parsley
1/3 lb. Swiss cheese cut into thin chunks
one small can sliced black olives
1 large red pepper, cut into small squares
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3-4 Tbs lemon juice
1 Tbs red wine vinegar
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1/2 C sliced almonds, toasted

Steam green beans until just tender. In a large bowl, combine all other ingredients except lemon juice, vinegar, and almonds. Add green beans, toss well and allow to marinate (tightly covered) in the refrigerator, for at least 2 hours, and up to 24 hours. About 10 minutes before serving, toss with the lemon juice and vinegar, and top with toasted almonds.

Roast Beef and Pasta Salad with Green Beans

The basis for this recipe came from Cooking Light Magazine, but I changed it to use more green beans and leftover roast beef. It would be great with any leftover beef. Seasoned grilled beef, grilled chicken, and even grilled shrimp would be delicious with this combination of ingredients. The vegetables you add to this salad could be switched up too. I also changed the dressing recipe to add a little more olive oil, since dry pasta salad is not our bag! Check your fridge and make a great summer salad!

Ingredients:

* 2 cups uncooked penne or other pasta
* 1 pound green beans, trimmed
* 1/2 - 1 lb. leftover beef roast or any other grilled meat or shrimp
* 1 cup thinly sliced red onion
* 1 1/2 cups thinly sliced red bell pepper
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
* 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
* 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
* 3 tablespoons olive oil, plus a little extra for the pasta
* 2 teaspoons honey
* 1 teaspoon minced garlic
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
* 1/4 cup (1 ounce) crumbled blue cheese

Preparation:

Bring 3 quarts water to a boil in a large pot. Add pasta; cook 5 1/2 minutes. Add green beans, and cook 3 minutes or until pasta is done. Drain and rinse with cold water. Drain well and place in a large serving bowl. Drizzle a little olive oil over the pasta and green beans and toss to coat. This will prevent the hot pasta from immediately absorbing all the dressing, and causing the salad to be too dry.

Add the meat, onions, peppers, and basil to the pasta and green beans. Combine the mustard, vinegar, oil, honey, garlic, salt and pepper. Mixing it all together in a shaker jar is an easy way to make a dressing. Pour over the pasta salad, tossing gently to coat. Sprinkle the blue cheese over all. Great served with a loaf of rustic bread!

Three Bean Salad

I made this the day after I made Sweet and Sour Green Beans. It was a great leftover recipe! As with all recipes using leftovers, make sure the leftovers are not too old and have been stored properly. Food poisoning is not what you want to achieve when trying not to waste food!

leftovers from Sweet and Sour Green Beans
1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas)
1 can dark red kidney beans
1/3 C finely chopped green pepper
olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, sweetener

Drain both cans of beans. Toss together the leftover green beans, drained beans, and green pepper. Then use your judgment and taste buds and dress the salad with the oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, and some sort of sweetener, such as honey, raw sugar, or whatever you like.

**A note about sweetening foods - the mass media being what it is, and having the agenda that is does, we have gotten a little crazy with our fear of using any sugar at all. And the harm of using artificial sweeteners is becoming more obvious all the time. But one of the secrets in experienced kitchens, is that many things have just a little sweetener added to enhance all the other flavors, or even provide a balance to something with vinegar for instance. If you look at the labels of many purchased foods, like spaghetti sauce, you'll see really high amounts of sugar and especially the harmful high fructose corn syrup. So when you're at home, a teaspoon or so of sweetener in a whole batch of soup, or chili, or sauce, is not going to hurt anything - unless you have some medical reason for avoiding it of course! There are good choices of natural sweeteners out there too, like sucanat and raw sugars, some of which have a lower glycemic index than processed sugars. The glycemic index measures how quickly the sugar affects the insulin levels in your blood stream, which affects so many other things - read up on it. However, one slice of pasty white bread has a higher glycemic index than does a whole tablespoon of plain old, processed, white sugar!! So throw out the white bread with fear and trembling, but go ahead and add a little sweetener to your cuisine when it needs it - it's a cook's secret you'll be glad you learned!