This week, for the first time, we are proud to present a laborious bunch of hand-picked green beans. Green beans are nutritious and versatile in addition to tasting – like everything else we grow – really, really good. I’ve found that the best thing to start with is to break the ends off of the beans and blanch the beans in a pot of hot water. Maybe for two or three minutes, enough to brighten the color and tenderize them.
After blanching the beans in hot water, plunge them in a bath of cold water (like a Finnish sauna ritual), and chop them into finger-joint-sized pieces. They are now ready to eat, tossed with salt and melted butter, or to use with any of the recipes below.

Green Beans Provençal

The usual provençal suspects:

2 cloves of garlic
1 medium tomato
1 large spring of basil (leaves only, please)
(optional dust of lavender)

Diced together and sautéed in olive oil on a medium heat until fragrant. When the garlic browns, mix the blanched beans into the pan and cook until just tender – don’t cook it too long or they’ll turn limp and depressed.

Salt and pepper finish it off. Contrary to your doctors’ advice, butter never hurts.

A Green Bean Salad

Toss together:

The Green Beans
Diced cubes of feta cheese
Halved olives
Diced lemon cucumbers
1 smushed clove of garlic
1 liberal pull of olive oil
Half a lemon’s juice
Salt and pepper

This is the life the party. To make it more like a conventional salad, thinly chop spinach leaves into long strips. You can use a dozen or so, and maintain the strong flavor of the salad, or add the whole bunch for a more relaxed addition.

Green Bean Stir-fry

A perfect late-summer stir-fry highlighting our first cabbages of the season and all the colored in the carrots.

Slice thinly and diagonally one of each carrot color
A good quarter of the cabbage, grated
Your green beans, already blanched
A few spinach leaves, casually torn

Get a high-heat oil (sunflowers works wonders) in a high-heat pan (aluminium does not) and throw in your carrots when hot. For an added element of flavor, you can add one (or more) of the following before the carrots:

Anis seeds, mustards seeds, a cinnamon stick, a dried red chile, freshly crushed garlic

And fry it in the oil until the popping stops. After the carrots have been dancing for a couple of minutes, add the cabbage. You will hear the heat go down as the cabbage comes up to temperature. When the sizzle is back, add the green beans. Stir rapidly, keeping the vegetables hot and moving.

Add some soy sauce. Stir and fry for a scant minute longer. Don’t let anything get soggy. Serve immediately over rice, barley, polenta, or something else warm and satisfying.

Sesame seeds – black and white together — make an excellent garnish.