Friday, July 25, 2008

"Yum" Outside My Door

I've decided I have garden love. Actually, before I even started typing this shot (while I waited for the photos to load) I went to let the dog out, and wound up spending 1/2 hour outside pulling weeds! I come by it honestly, though, since my mom is equally guilty in doing that!

Aside from an embarassingly large armload of unwanted greenery (and unfortunately, the majority of my radish plants, which died due to overcrowding) I managed to procure a bagful of mixed produce from my now bountiful garden. In that bag was the first of the season's tomatoes, a few leaves of Tuscan kale, and a whack-load of assorted beans.

I mentioned a while back when I first started the garden, waaay back in March, a few of the other offerings from my garden, but I have to say my favourite harvest so far are these purple beans! As you can see from the (blurry, sorry!) cross-section I took, they are in fact green inside, and when you cook them - even for as little as two minutes - they go from violet to emerald! Needless to say, to preserve the nutritents as much as possible, steam them until just crisp-tender, about 5 minutes or so. They'll lose their purple colour but not the incredibly important vitamin boost! We're growing another of my favourites, Romano beans, as well this year, but my stapfather seems to steal them all on me! If I can get my hands on some though, A Veggie Venture has this awesome looking recipe that I will definitely be keeping on hand.

All in all, this was a simple, satisfying lunch made super easy, since all the stuff came out of my garden (except the lettuce, which I picked up at the farmer's market, and the hummus, which was storebought - Wendy and Barb's Skinny Dips is what I used). If you don't happen to have purple beans, just swap colours!

Purple Bean and Tomato Salad
Serves 1
6 oz green or purple beans, chopped into 1" pieces
3 tbsp Skinny Dips hummus
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp oregano
1 sprig parsley, minced
3 oz iceberg or Romaine lettuce, shredded
1 plum tomato, halved lengthwise and sliced thinly
fresh-ground black pepper, to taste
  1. Steam the bean pieces 4 minutes over boiling water. Set aside.
  2. In a small bowl, mix together hummus, lemon juice, oregano and parsley. Set aside.
  3. Place lettuce in a salad bowl.
  4. Top with tomato slices and warm, steamed beans.
  5. Season with pepper.
  6. Pour hummus mixture overtop of everything, toss lightly to coat.
  7. Serve immediately.

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 122.6
Total Fat: 1.3 g
Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
Sodium: 414.3 mg
Total Carbs: 25.0 g
Dietary Fiber: 9.0 g
Protein: 5.9 g

Whatever your gardens bring you, enjoy it while you can! God knows come January we'll all be hankering for that dirt-under-the-fingernails feeling again!

2 comments :

  1. I've never seen purple beans before, they look incredible, so pretty. Do they just tase like ordinary green beans?

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for the feedback!