green bean salad with fried almonds

deb — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 02:35:45 +0000

I’m pretty sure I had a normal relationship to all things stringy and green when I started this site, but if my archives are any indication, at some point in 2008, something shifted and I became a green bean fiend. It might have even been May of that year, a month that be began with a simple summery salad but by month’s end, I was forcing Alex to endure takeout from a medicore French restaurant up to twice a week, just so I could have their side dish of skinny green beans with a pat of butter, some shallots and tomatoes and a squeeze of lemon juice. (When he cut me off, I simply went into the kitchen and attempted them myself.) I began remembering which restaurants cooked green beans perfectly each time, like the one on 7th Avenue that served them with roast chicken, buried in jus under a pile mashed potatoes and I literally ate them before the salty, crispy skin. I began judging places harshly if my beans flapped or flopped on a plate. I could speak unhealthily at length about various cooking times and what texture they’d leave the beans.

Little has changed since May of 2008, well, except now a certain 12-toothed toddler had joined me in my green bean enthusiasm. We cook a pound at least once a week and eat them with nothing but a sprinkle of sea salt on top. And at least once a week I force us to order takeout from a restaurant just because they make a great green bean salad. And last week, we were able to sneak out to a new pasta restaurant in our neighborhood and look, the pasta was great, but this is what I really remember: green beans, lightly pickled red onions, thinly shaved fennel, slivers of celery and almonds, so well toasted their insides were the color of coffee.

... Read the rest of green bean salad with fried almonds on smittenkitchen.com

fennel, prosciutto and pomegranate salad

deb — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:03:28 +0000

I cannot resist buying pomegranates. When they start start popping up in stores each year, I have to take them home with me and either beg Alex to take them apart in his neat or organized way (show off), or do it myself and splatter the walls and my shirt and stain my fingertips a telltale pink for days (typical). It’s all worth it. They are this seafood-phobic’s caviar.

But aside from, well, you know, eating them straight, which is nothing to complain about, I rarely know what to DO with them. What does one make with pomegranates? Oh, I am sure all of you creative people have 100 ideas. You make pomegranate upside down cakes and delicate custards with whole seeds suspended in them. You freeze them into bubbly sorbets. But me, I just have this salad.

... Read the rest of fennel, prosciutto and pomegranate salad on smittenkitchen.com

smitten kitchen » Fennel

green bean salad with fried almonds

fennel, prosciutto and pomegranate salad