SPRING PANZANELLA

Yup, still behind. Considering we’re a week past the Fourth of July, I guess I should finish posting last season’s recipes…or at least the ones with “spring” right there in the title. That means breaking my cardinal rule of not posting two Smitten Kitchen recipes in a row and making it obvious that I’m only a few steps away from being a blatant SK fan blog. (I can’t help it! Her recipes are just so good!) This is one I’ve been eyeing on and off for several years, especially since winter panzanella became one of my favorite salads. The white beans in this one always gave me pause—whole, cold beans are still not my favorite, and I knew A would be even less thrilled when confronted with them. But my desire to eat all the spring things, along with the constant need for more main-dish salads in my life, won out.

I made a few adjustments, most notably adding chopped hard-boiled eggs, which I thought might fit in well with the spring theme while also ensuring a fully satisfying, protein-packed one-bowl meal. After we ate, A proclaimed that the egg was an integral part of his enjoyment of the salad, mitigating the presence of the dreaded beans, so a point for me, I guess. I also threw in some green beans because my asparagus bundle looked a bit on the skimpy side (and also because…spring). Finally, after reading many complaints in the comments about the original recipe’s slightly odd leek-cooking method (which involves boiling them whole and then trying to slice them while slimy-soft into chunks that looked off-puttingly large to me), I decided to try slicing them before cooking, which worked just fine. The layers do separate a bit, but the smaller pieces integrated better into the salad—another plus, since A isn’t a huge fan of leeks to begin with. It still feels a bit strange to boil leeks, and I was tempted to roast or sauté them, as some commenters mentioned doing, but I think the simmer does give them a nice, juicy tenderness that’s needed in this salad. (I cut back on the quantity slightly, though, in favor of more green beans.)

The result was an excellent salad, delicate yet flavorful, durable, portable, and pretty. Although I’ll admit the real star of the show might be the incredible garlicky-cheesy croutons.

Croutons:
¼ cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
6 cups day-old baguette or other bread, cubed
6 tablespoons finely grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Vinaigrette:
Half a red onion, finely diced
2 to 2½ tablespoons champagne or white wine vinegar
Juice of half a lemon
¼ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Salad:
2-4 large leeks
2 teaspoons salt
1 pound asparagus (I used about ¾ pound asparagus and ½ pound green beans, which was delicious)
1 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed and drained, or 1½ cups cooked white beans
2-4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. For the croutons, mix the bread cubes with the garlic, olive oil, Parmesan, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Toss to coat well. Transfer bread to a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake, stirring once or twice, until the croutons are crisp and lightly colored on the outside, about 10 to 15 minutes. Set aside and let cool.
3. For the dressing, mix the red onion with the vinegar and lemon juice in a small bowl and set aside for a few minutes before whisking in the olive oil, Dijon, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
4. Bring a few inches of salted water to a boil in a large pot. Break off and discard tough ends of asparagus, then cut the spears into 1-inch segments. Add to the boiling water and cook until crisp-tender, about 3 to 5 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer it to a bowl of ice water, then drain and pat it dry.
5. Cut off and discard dark green tops and root ends of leeks. Halve each leek lengthwise and rinse well under cold running water to wash away sand. Slice leeks into ½-inch-thick pieces and add to the boiling water in the pot. Simmer, uncovered, until tender, 5 to 10 minutes. Drain, transfer to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking, drain again, and then pat dry with a towel.
6. Place asparagus, leeks, white beans, and eggs (if using) in a large bowl and mix in the cooled Parmesan croutons. (If you’re not planning on eating all the salad right away, only put croutons into the servings you plan to eat; store remaining salad and croutons separately.) Pour vinaigrette over and toss well. Season with salt and pepper.

Serves: 4 as a main dish, 6 as a side
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: Good; store salad and croutons separately until about 15 minutes before you want to eat them.

GREEN BEANS WITH ALMOND PESTO

I have a bad habit of trying new vegetable side dishes and forgetting to note them here, either because I didn’t bother to snap a photo or because the recipe seemed so simple I doubted whether it was worth singling out for posterity. Then, of course, the next time I want a vegetable side dish I look at my archives and just see the same old handful of options, so I figure I’ll try something new and the whole cycle begins again.

This pattern is particularly prevalent with green beans, because I love green beans so much that I have a hard time resisting the allure of new variations. I have three perfectly good ones languishing in my “try again” file right now (and may as well link to them for the record, as I might never get around to them again). But now I’ve found one that I’m so excited about, I’m going to break with tradition and post it in a timely and enthusiastic fashion.

When I saw this recipe at Smitten Kitchen, it looked good enough to bookmark, but I’ll admit that I figured Deb’s rave reviews were partly due to her pregnancy cravings; how revolutionary can green beans with almonds really be? Then I tried it … and was blown away. There’s something about that almond pesto—The salty Parmesan? The garlic? The hint of thyme or bright pop of vinegar?—that makes it so much more than the sum of its already-plenty-delicious parts.

I halved the recipe, more or less (a little more cheese, garlic, and thyme never hurt anyone). My tiny food processor tried to balk when it came to breaking down whole almonds, so I gave it a hand by chopping them first. Still, I wouldn’t switch to sliced or slivered ones; there’s something about the nubbly, clumpy texture of the finished pesto I really enjoy. It doesn’t always cling that well to the beans (don’t skip the extra drizzle of oil—it really helps) and you’ll end up scraping a bunch out of the bottom of your bowl afterward, but that’s fine with me because I can happily eat that stuff with a spoon. This is one new side dish that’s going to make it into heavy rotation.

1 pound green beans, trimmed, cut in half if really long
½ cup (2½ ounces) whole almonds, toasted, cooled, and roughly chopped
¼ cup (3/4 ounce) grated Parmesan or aged Pecorino cheese
1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed
Leaves from a sprig or two of thyme
Pinches of red pepper flakes, to taste
¼ teaspoon coarse sea or kosher salt
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus extra for drizzling

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add beans and cook until crisp-tender, about 3 to 4 minutes. Plunge into an ice-water bath to fully cool. Drain and pat dry.
2. In a food processor, grind almonds, cheese, garlic, thyme, red pepper, and salt to a coarse paste. Add vinegar and pulse again. Stir in oil and adjust seasonings to taste (I add more salt at this point).
3. Toss cooled green beans with almond pesto and drizzle with extra olive oil.

Serves: 4
Time: 20 minutes
Leftover potential: Good; my leftover servings stayed just fine in the fridge for a few days, and the original recipe mentions that you can keep the almond pesto on its own, refrigerated, for up to a week.

SALMON SALAD

I never thought I’d be interested in something called “salmon salad.” Let’s face it, it sounds weird—even though it’s basically just a modified Nicoise with salmon instead of tuna. But cold cooked fish is not my thing, and recently I’ve decided to face the fact that salmon isn’t my thing either, no matter how it’s cooked (raw is a different story; I could eat salmon sushi all day long). Yet the photo in Dinner: A Love Story still drew me in, with its rainbow of purple potatoes, green beans and cucumbers and herbs, yellow corn, red tomatoes, and the lovely pink salmon. Those are all my favorite summer vegetables, and I love lemony-mustardy vinaigrettes like this one—would all that be enough to make chilled salmon palatable?

Short answer: Yes, for me. A was not a fan of this one, but I kind of love it. It turns out that tearing it into little bits and mixing it with lots of other things mitigates most of the textural issues I have with cooked salmon. This salad is a great way to get me to eat fish AND make it portable—the leftovers keep well for several days and can be consumed at work without inflicting any of the dreaded fish-reheating smell (the scourge of so many office kitchens) on your colleagues. I still prefer white fish overall, but this beautifully refreshing summer salad is my new favorite way to work the occasional smattering of salmon into my diet.

My only notable changes to the original recipe were to add dill, which is just so perfect with salmon (and green beans, and potatoes, and cucumber…), and to omit the sugar from the vinaigrette. I made it as written the first time, but I should have remembered that I never add sugar to my dressings—not surprisingly, it tasted too sweet to me. I prefer things acidic, and the starchy potatoes and dense salmon can definitely stand up to tart flavors. I’ve marked the sugar as optional here; I’d recommend tasting the dressing without it first, and then adding it in ½ teaspoon increments to take the sour edge off if needed.

¼ cup red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon sugar (optional)
About 1 teaspoon fresh lemon or lime juice, to taste
½ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound salmon fillet
1 large handful (about 1 cup) small red, purple or yellow potatoes, halved or quartered depending on size
2 ears corn
1 large handful (about 1 cup) thin green beans, trimmed and chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 cup cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1 medium Persian cucumber, seeded and chopped
4 scallions (white and light green parts), chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (parsley would also be good here if you don’t have cilantro)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
   
2. To make the vinaigrette, in a small bowl whisk together the vinegar, mustard, sugar (if desired), lemon/lime juice, oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside.
   
3. To make the salmon, sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper. Roast in a foil-lined baking dish for 15 minutes. Set aside and let cool.
4. Meanwhile, bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil. Add the potatoes and cook until a knife slices through them with no resistance, about 10-12 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the potatoes to a colander and let cool.
5. Add the corn to the same pot of water. Boil for 4 minutes. Remove to a cutting board and allow to cool.
6. Add beans to the same pot of water and cook for 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and let cool in a colander.
7. Place the tomatoes, cucumber, scallions, cilantro, and dill in a large bowl. When potatoes and green beans are room temperature, add them to the mixture. Cut the kernels off the corn cobs and add those to the bowl. Gently flake the salmon apart into bite-sized chunks and add it to the salad. Pour on the vinaigrette and toss gently.

Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Leftover potential: Good.

SPRING POTATO SALAD

I toyed with a few (non-mayonnaise) potato salad recipes over the last couple of summers, but aside from this one (which, at least the way I make it, is more of a leafy green salad with potatoes in it), never settled on one I could wholeheartedly embrace. Part of the problem, I think, was that I had not yet evolved into the mustard fiend I now seem to have become. To keep a potato salad from being bland, you need a big, bold dressing, and mustard can be very kind to potatoes. Another issue is the other vegetables involved; I don’t adore potatoes enough to consider them "salad" in their own right, and some veggies complement them better than others. Several of the non-winning recipes used tomatoes and peppers, which didn’t do it for me. My favorite pairings with potatoes are green: asparagus and green beans. And of course, I have a recent interest in radishes, so when I saw Smitten Kitchen's gorgeous spring potato salad featuring all those elements, plus another one of my growing obsessions, pickled vegetables, the deal was sealed.

This salad rocks. It’s wholesome, delectable, and beautiful. The mustard-laden vinaigrette packs a wonderful punch, and the sweet-sour pickled onions are the coup de gras. As I learned from an earlier Smitten Kitchen recipe, a quick soak in sugared and salted vinegar takes just the right amount of bite out of raw onions to keep them from overwhelming the rest of a salad (and you from reeking for the rest of the evening), as well as adding a delicious zip, and this particular version, made with delicate spring onions, is so mild you can snack on them straight. And you will probably have leftovers (although after eating the salad, I decided I could have put in more of the onions), so you can do just that—or try adding them to sandwiches, grilled meat, or other salads later in the week.

We devoured big bowls of this as a main dish for dinner, with small grilled chicken thighs on the side, and then again for lunch the next day, and I’ll probably make it again next week. I’m sure you could mess around with the vegetable ingredients however you wanted (I substituted green beans for the peas Deb used, because A hates peas and the potato-green bean combo is so good, and tweaked the ingredient proportions slightly based on availability—a bit less potato, a few more green beans), but this version is perfect for me. Good thing summer weather has been slow to arrive in Southern California, because I could happily eat this springy salad all year long.

1¾ pounds small new or fingerling potatoes in assorted colors
1 pound asparagus
½ pound green beans
4 medium radishes, thinly sliced

Pickled spring onions:
3 spring onions (about 6 ounces)
¼ cup white wine vinegar
¼ cup water
1 tablespoon coarse kosher salt
1½ teaspoons sugar

Sharp mustard vinaigrette:
¼ cup olive oil
2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard
2 teaspoons smooth Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Place potatoes in a medium saucepan and cover with one inch of water. Bring to a boil and cook for about 15 minutes, or you can easily pierces a potato with the tip of a knife. Drain the potatoes and let them cool until they’re almost room temperature. You can hasten this by covering them with cold water, and replacing the water a few times as it warms up.

2. Meanwhile, pickle your spring onions. Whisk vinegar, water, salt, and sugar together in the bottom of a small container with a lid until the salt and sugar dissolve. Slice the onion bulbs and paler green parts into very thin coins and submerge them in the vinegar mixture. Cover and put in fridge until you’re ready to use them; if you can put them aside for an hour or even overnight, even better. Reserve the onion greens.

3. Refill the saucepan you used for the potatoes with salted water and bring it to a boil. Trim the tough ends off the asparagus and slice the ends off the green beans; cut both vegetables into ½-inch pieces. Once the water is boiling, add the asparagus and the green beans. Two minutes later or when vegetables are crisp-tender, drain them, rinse them under cold water until cool, drain again, and spread them out on towel to absorb excess water.

4. Place the asparagus, green beans, and sliced radishes in a large bowl. Chop potatoes into moderate-sized chunks and add them to the bowl. Cut some of the reserved onion greens into thin slivers (no need to use all of them) and add them to the bowl.

5. When you’re ready to serve the salad, or an hour or two in advance, whisk the dressing ingredients and toss it with the vegetables, to taste. Stir in as many pickled onion coins as you please. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste.

Serves: 4−6
Time: 1 hour
Leftover potential: OK. The salad was still very tasty the next day, but the acid in the vinaigrette had discolored the asparagus and green beans somewhat. If you want to make this ahead, it would probably be better to chill all the vegetables separately in the fridge overnight and wait until the last minute to combine them and add the dressing.

GREEN BEANS WITH WARM BACON VINAIGRETTE

It will surprise exactly no one that the combination of green beans and bacon turns out to be excellent. I tore this recipe out of the November issue of Cooking Light and by now it’s racked up a perfect five-star rating on the Web site. It was intended as a Thanksgiving recipe, but I see no need to wait for a special occasion; this is a great way to jazz up an ordinary weeknight meal (we had it with zucchini fritters). The flavors go together beautifully: Like my favorite salad, it has green beans and walnuts and a walnut oil/white-wine-vinegar dressing; like these two also-tasty recent discoveries, it uses bacon grease to excellent effect; and like so many of my most reliable side dishes, it involves shallots. What’s not to love? A and I both devoured it happily, and it’s definitely going into our regular rotation.

Other than halving the quantities (it originally served 8), using plain ol' farmers' market green beans instead of haricots verts, and swapping in white wine vinegar for the champagne vinegar, which I never have on hand, I followed the recipe as written. I do recommend walnut oil (I’ve become a convert), but olive oil will do just fine if you don’t want to make the investment.

1 pound green beans, trimmed
2 slices bacon, chopped
⅓ cup thinly sliced shallots (about 1 medium)
2 teaspoons walnut oil
1 teaspoon champagne or white wine vinegar
½ teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts, toasted
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1. Cook beans in boiling salted water for 7 minutes or until crisp-tender. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop cooking.

2. Cook bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp; remove with a slotted spoon. Add shallots to drippings in pan; cook 5 minutes or until tender. Combine shallots and bacon in a large bowl. Add beans to pan; cook 3 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Add beans, oil, vinegar, and salt to bacon mixture; toss to combine. Sprinkle with walnuts and parsley.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Meh; they were perfectly edible the next day, but not nearly as good.

HUNGARIAN GREEN BEAN SOUP

Ta-da, my collection of pureed green soups is now complete! Actually, it didn’t occur to me that this soup might be a dead ringer for several others in my repertoire until I set out to take pictures of it and felt a strong pang of déjà vu; there are only so many ways to photograph pale green liquid in a blue bowl in a poorly lit kitchen, after all. I’d had the recipe bookmarked in my copy of The St. Paul Farmers’ Market Cookbook for several years, mostly because I’d never heard of a green bean soup before, and green beans are one of my favorite vegetables, but also because the sour cream/dill combo (the thing that makes it “Hungarian,” I guess) sounded alluring.

This is an easy recipe, assembled along the ol’ boil-and-puree line, and (I feel like I say this all the time) I feared it would be bland, but it wasn’t. A feared it would be super-green-beany, and it wasn’t that, either. It mostly tasted like dill and sour cream (well, I used crème fraiche, and plain yogurt, preferably Greek, would also work), sort of like a lighter, fresher, tangier, less oniony potato-leek soup, but with a vague green undertone. It didn’t bowl me over with its uniqueness (at least, I’m not sure I could identify it as green bean soup if I were blindfolded), but I enjoyed it and will certainly make it again, not least because it’s so versatile—lemony and green for spring, delicate enough for summer, and accessible enough for winter (the recipe says you can even use frozen green beans). We ate it with dill, red onion, and cheddar drop biscuits (a good way to use up the rest of that bunch of dill), but garlic bread would also make a good accompaniment.

3 cups good-quality chicken broth (or vegetable broth, for a vegetarian version)
½ pound fresh green beans
2 small russet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1 small onion, quartered
¼ cup butter
2 tablespoons snipped fresh dill
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
¼ cup sour cream or crème fraiche (can also substitute plain yogurt)
Juice of 1 lemon

1. Combine broth, beans, potatoes, onion, butter, dill, and garlic in large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until vegetables are tender, 20 to 25 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper.

2. Transfer soup to a blender or processor in batches and puree until smooth, then return to saucepan (or leave in the pan and use an immersion blender). Stir in sour cream and lemon juice. Warm over low heat until heated through.

Serves: 4
Time: 40 minutes
Leftover potential: Good

GREEN BEAN AND POTATO SALAD WITH BACON

At this time of the year, I get a little cranky about living in Southern California. It’s fall—school’s started (and with it, the horrific post-Labor-Day traffic), the days are getting shorter (it’s dark when I get up in the morning and nearly dark when I come home at night), the clothing stores are full of wool and fleece, and I’ve even seen a few leaves turning orange (yes, some of our trees do change colors in the autumn, contrary to popular belief). The food blogs are suddenly full of talk of pumpkins, apples, long-simmered soups, and pot roasts. And…it’s 103 degrees in Pasadena. September is traditionally one of our hottest months, not to mention that some part of the Southland is usually on fire. It’s still too hot for me to even make ice cream, let alone start canning and braising and roasting and baking and cuddling up under blankets the way online peer pressure and my own Northern instincts compel me to.

But I’m trying to look on the bright side. At least I get a little longer to say goodbye to summer and perfect all my salad recipes, right? Like the other night I revisited this one from Cooking Light, which I first made a few months ago and enjoyed, but never got around to writing about. I couldn’t get wax beans, my photos turned out sort of blah, and A—who I’d expected to be enthusiastic about anything involving bacon—was skeptical (“the pieces are too big and it’s hard to eat”). So, in the midst of this new heat wave, I thought I’d give it another shot—this time, with wax beans, a little extra bacon, and the beans and potatoes halved crosswise to address A’s objections. The result was a perfectly pleasant potato-green bean salad, heavy on the green beans (I like that), dressed in a simple vinaigrette, and jazzed up with crumbles of bacon. It’s good…but if this doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, it’s because not even the allure of bacon can rival the other potato-green bean salad in my life, the one I discovered a few weeks ago and can’t stop craving. So I’m not sure whether this recipe will quite make it into my repertoire. But I recommend it to you, and I might turn to it every now and again, just for variety, when summer starts feeling a little too long.

¾ pound green beans, trimmed
½ pound wax beans, trimmed
½ pound fingerling potatoes, halved lengthwise
¼ cup white wine vinegar, divided
1 tablespoon olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt, divided
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1tablespoon minced fresh parsley
2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

1. Cook beans in boiling water 5 minutes or until crisp-tender. Drain and run under cold water for a few minutes, then let drain again.

2. Place potatoes in a saucepan; cover with water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes or until tender; drain. Return potatoes to pan over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons vinegar to pan; bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

3. Combine remaining 2 tablespoons vinegar, oil, ¼ teaspoon salt, and pepper in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk. Drizzle beans with vinegar mixture; toss well to coat. Place beans on a serving platter; arrange potatoes over beans. Sprinkle with remaining ¼teaspoon salt, parsley, and bacon. Serve at room temperature.

Serves: 6
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: OK. The vinegar will discolor the green beans, so it won’t be as pretty, but it will still taste fine.

GREEN BEAN AND CHERRY TOMATO SALAD

With just two vegetables in a basic vinaigrette, this salad is almost too simple to talk about. You may note that it’s also suspiciously similar to this salad, but with shallots instead of corn. But it’s plenty tasty, and since it happens to contains the two vegetables I’ve been most obsessed with this summer (as well as following the vegetable + acid + shallots formula that’s worked so well for me in the past), I’m…going to talk about it anyway. After all, you can never have too many summer salads in your arsenal, particularly when the temperature hits the triple digits and forests in your immediate vicinity are on fire.

The recipe is from Chez Panisse Vegetables, via Smitten Kitchen, and I made it for the first time on the fourth of July, when A was out of town and some friends kindly invited me to share in their cookout, so I volunteered to bring salad and we all enjoyed it. But I forgot to photograph it or write about it, so I made it again last week, as a side dish for a hot-weather dinner of hummus and pita crisps. A, being not really a fan of either cherry tomatoes or green beans, politely tried a few bites and then gave me the rest of his bowl, so I guess we won’t be eating this all the time. But I’m fine with making myself a big bowl to eat by my lonesome when the green-bean-and-cherry-tomato craving strikes again.

I made a half-recipe, but otherwise no other modifications. I haven’t added an herb so far, but I do think basil would be tasty.

1 pound green beans (or a mix of green and yellow beans)
1 pound cherry tomatoes
1 large shallot
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
Basil or other herb (optional)

1. Trim the beans and cut them into large segments. Parboil in salted water until just tender, about four to five minutes. Drain and immediately spread them out to cool.

2. Stem the cherry tomatoes and cut them in half.

3. Peel and mince the shallot and put it in a large bowl with the vinegar and salt and pepper. Whisk in the olive oil. Taste and adjust the balance with more vinegar, oil, or salt, as needed. Toss the cherry tomatoes in with the vinaigrette. This can sit for a while, but do not add the green beans until just before serving or they will discolor from the acid in the vinaigrette. For variety, the salad can be garnished with basil or some other fresh herb such as parsley.

Serves: 6
Time: 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Low to OK. I did eat some leftovers the next day and they tasted fine, but the vinegar had turned the green beans an unappetizing army green, so be forewarned.

ARUGULA, POTATO, AND GREEN BEAN SALAD

Holy crap, I love this salad. And you know my usual lack of enthusiasm for salads. In particular, I’ve always been an avowed potato-salad hater (detest mayonnaise, don’t care much for mustard, and could never see the point of eating cold potatoes), but for some reason, this summer it’s started to look good to me as I’ve seen it paraded across the food blogs (at least the German-style vinegar-based kinds), and I’ve tried a couple of recipes with decent, if not blogworthy results: one had bacon and was therefore quite palatable, and I’ve been meaning to try it again so I can photograph it and write it up here; the other had pesto and was OK but not something I’m likely to crave again. Both of them had green beans, which I am apparently extra obsessed with this year.

But this recipe from Smitten Kitchen (adapted from Martha Stewart) is just what I was looking for, even though I didn’t really know I was looking for it. It’s not a potato salad, but rather a normal (i.e., leafy) salad with potatoes in it, yet the dressing is a sly allusion to potato salad—a vinaigrette with a tiny hit of mustard (not enough to scare off this Dijonphobe, though I was suspicious) and a bit of creaminess (mercifully provided by yogurt, not mayonnaise). What really made this salad about as addictive as salads can get was the wonderful interplay between contrasting textures: the leafy arugula, the tender potatoes, the crisp green beans, the crunchy walnuts, and the creamy dressing. I was worried it would be bland, just plain boiled vegetables with greens and walnuts and some dressing, but it was far from it, even though I didn’t bother to buy walnut oil. (So expensive! Such a big bottle!) It tasted so great with plain old olive oil that I’m going to advise you not to bother with the walnut oil unless you already have it in your cupboard or have been waiting for an excuse to buy some.

Other than the olive oil, I didn’t make any changes to the recipe. I made a half-recipe (but a full amount of the dressing, just because it was easier to measure and whisk that way; of course, then I had some left over, which I really should have saved to put over ordinary salad) and split it into two big servings, which we ate for dinner with garlic-butter salmon on the side—and I kid you not, the salad outshone the salmon for me; I actually, for perhaps the first time in my life, wished I could just have two bowls of salad for dinner. I did think the recipe called for slightly too many potatoes—I would venture to say 1 pound might do it—but I’ll let you make that call. I didn’t really measure out my arugula, just pulled enough handfuls out of the bag to fill our bowls and then tossed the other ingredients on top. And I flubbed a bit and put all the salt and pepper in the dressing, rather than saving half to sprinkle over the salad. It didn’t seem to make too much difference.

I can’t wait to make this again. I like that even though it’s perfect for summer—a more vitamin-rich, colorful riff on the old picnic side dish—you could just as easily make this in the winter if you can find decent-quality potatoes and green beans and bagged arugula. Something about walnuts always seems Christmasy to me anyway. But I certainly won’t wait that long…in fact, I might make more this weekend.

1 ounce walnuts (about ⅓ cup)
1½ pounds fingerling potatoes, cut crosswise into ½-inch-thick rounds
6 ounces green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch segments
2 tablespoons white wine or other mild vinegar
2 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon coarse salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons walnut oil or olive oil
3 ounces baby arugula

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees, place walnuts on a rimmed baking sheet, and toast in oven until fragrant, about 8 minutes (you can do this in a skillet on the stovetop over medium heat, if you prefer). Let cool slightly, then coarsely chop and set aside.

2. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer potatoes to a colander to drain and cool. Set aside.

3. Return pan of water to a boil. Add green beans, and cook until tender and bright green, about 3 to 4 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to a colander and run under cold water to stop the cooking.

4. Whisk together vinegar, yogurt, mustard, and ½ teaspoon salt in a small bowl; season with pepper. Add oil in a slow, steady stream, whisking until emulsified. Set dressing aside.

5. Arrange arugula, potatoes, and green beans on a platter. Season with remaining ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Drizzle with dressing and sprinkle with toasted walnuts; toss to coat.

Serves: 4 as a main dish, 8 as a side dish
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Low; as with most leafy salads, the arugula will get wilty and slimy if it sits in the dressing for too long.

ROASTED GREEN BEANS

Psst! I realized something important this week: I've been happily making roasted green beans for years now (YEARS, I TELL YOU) and yet have never bothered to post the recipe here. So basically, I've been selfishly keeping roasted green beans a secret all this time, clutching them tightly to my breast in my wizened claws while muttering "Bah humbug! NO ROASTED GREEN BEANS FOR YOU!"

OK, not really. Actually, I just kept forgetting to post the recipe, and then I forgot about it completely for a while and only recently, in the throes of a serious summer passion for green beans, remembered its existence. I'm just trying to sexy this up a little bit, since it's so ridiculously simple it barely seems like a recipe at all. But it's no simpler than roasted asparagus, roasted broccoli, or roasted kale, and just as good, so I suppose it deserves a posting.

Y'all already know that roasting things makes them tasty--browned and delightfully chewy-crunchy, almost addictively snackworthy--and green beans are no different. If you think you don't like a vegetable, I say, try it roasted (it's worked for me with turnips, parsnips, and kale, although I have so far failed to fall in love with roasted beets). And of course, if you love a vegetable, definitely try it roasted. I especially like roasting green beans because--has this ever happened to you? Sometimes you go to the market and you get green beans and they're fantastic, so crisp and juicy you can eat them raw (I actually like raw green beans better than cooked ones; it reminds me of picking them and eating them straight from the garden as a kid). But then other times, even though the beans appear to be just as nice, and you spend an hour carefully choosing the skinny ones and skipping the overmature bulgy ones, you get them home and they're all thick and lumpy and tough and dry and revolting. That happened to me this week, and it was bumming me out until I remembered that roasting is an excellent treatment for non-superstar green beans. High heat transforms all that leathery starchiness back into sweet, sweet sugar (SCIENCE!). For extra excitement, try a mixture of green and yellow beans.

1 pound green beans, trimmed
1 tablespoon olive oil
Coarse salt to taste

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2. Wash the beans and dry them well. Place them on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with a little salt, and toss well.

3. Roast for 15 minutes, or until beans reach desired degree of doneness, stirring them or shaking the pan a few times so they roast evenly. Season with additional salt, and a little fresh-ground pepper would not be a bad thing either.

Serves: 4
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: Fair. They'll be best right out of the oven, but they're still pretty tasty reheated.

GREEN BEANS AND CORN WITH TOMATO-HERB VINAIGRETTE

This recipe, from Jack Bishop’s Vegetables Every Day, tastes exactly as you’d expect, and I mean that in the best way possible. If you have sweet corn, tomatoes, and green beans at the peak of their fresh summer perfection, you don’t need to do much to them beyond a few minutes of cooking and a quick toss in a light vinaigrette. I quartered the recipe, and the big bowl of delicious veggies, served with a quesadilla on the side, made a perfect it’s-too-hot-to-stand-over-the-stove weeknight meal for one—particularly since I had already-cooked corn kernels ready to go, cut off an ear I’d boiled the night before while making myself some corn on the cob, which enabled me to skip Step 1 and part of step 3. I used some mixed heirloom cherry tomatoes, which always seem to work more neatly in salads than chunks from a bigger tomato, and just one herb (basil), since I needed such a small quantity. I’m looking forward to making more next time, with a full array of herbs, as a light side dish for me and A, and a full batch would also make a great salad option for a picnic or cookout. It just tastes like summer.

4 medium ears corn
2 medium ripe tomatoes (about 1 pound), cored and cut into ½-inch cubes
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
¼ cup minced fresh herbs (especially basil, tarragon, chives, parsley, and cilantro)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 pound green beans, ends snapped off

1. Remove the husks and silk from the corn. Cut the ears in half crosswise with a chef’s knife, stand each piece on its cut end, and slice downward several times to remove all the kernels (discard the cobs). You should have about 2½ cups kernels.

2. Bring several quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. While waiting for the water to boil, combine the tomatoes, oil, vinegar, herbs, and salt and pepper to taste in a large serving bowl. Set aside.

3. Add the beans and salt to taste to the boiling water. Cook for 3 minutes. Add the corn and continue cooking until the vegetables are tender, 2 to 3 minutes longer. Drain, shake dry, and then spread the vegetables over a clean towel so they dry quickly. Let cool to room temperature.

4. When the beans and corn are just barely warm (this will take about 10 minutes), toss them with the tomato mixture. Adjust the seasonings. Serve at room temperature. (This salad can be covered and set aside for up to 2 hours.)

Serves: 4–6
Time: 30 minutes
Leftover potential: I didn't have any leftovers, but I imagine this would be fine the next day.

GREEN BEANS WITH SHALLOTS AND LEMON

Here’s a quick and easy side dish that pairs one of my favorite vegetables with one of my favorite flavor combos for vegetables: shallots and lemon. After making this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen (but leaving off the tomatoes, which I don’t particularly like paired with green beans) a couple of times, I barely even want to bother with any of my other green-bean side-dish recipes anymore. This one is light enough for spring and summer but can just as easily brighten up a fall or winter meal as well.

½ pound green beans, trimmed
2 teaspoons butter
1 small shallot, sliced
Salt and pepper to taste
Juice of ½ lemon

1. Bring a pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add green beans and cook for 3½ minutes. Drain and plunge beans into cold water.

2. In the empty pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add shallot and sauté until tender, 1–2 minutes. Add drained and cooled green beans and reheat them in the butter and shallots. Season with salt and pepper and squeeze lemon juice over.

Serves: 2
Time: 15 minutes
Leftover potential: Low, because they’re so addictive you’ll eat them all right away. If you do somehow manage to have some hanging around the next day, the lemon juice will have discolored the green beans, although they’ll taste just fine.

GREEN BEANS WITH GINGER BUTTER

I don’t have a photo, but I made this side dish for the second or third time last night (to accompany this red lentil soup* and some really nice dark, dense whole-wheat seeded bread from Whole Foods) and was reminded how awesome it is, and thus how much I need to tell you about it. I’m pretty sure the recipe is from Ye Old Standby, Vegetables Every Day by Jack Bishop. I love green beans and would never have thought to pair them with ginger. I think it’s the addition of lemon that makes them so addictive to me, though. Better still, it's so quick and easy you can whip it up while your chicken or fish or whatever main dish finishes cooking.

*The soup was really good, a nice change of pace for me (I've never had red lentils before), easy to make, wholesome, and just right on the spiciness scale. But I don't think I love it quite enough to add it to my repertoire, so I'll just let Sassy Radish tell you about it instead.

1 pound green beans, trimmed
1 1½-inch-long piece fresh ginger
1½ tablespoons butter
Finely grated zest from ¼ lemon
¼ teaspoon salt

1. Cook beans in 4 quarts boiling salted water, uncovered, until just tender, 5–8 minutes (depending on thickness). Drain in a colander and wash under cold running water to stop cooking. Drain beans again and pat dry.

2. Peel ginger and halve crosswise, then thinly slice lengthwise and cut into very thin matchsticks.

3. Heat butter in a nonstick skillet over medium heat until foam subsides, then cook ginger, stirring, until golden, about 3 minutes.

4. Add beans and cook, stirring, until just heated through, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add zest and salt, tossing to combine.

Serves 4

INDONESIAN-STYLE CURRIED VEGETABLE SOUP

May 2008 update: Pretty, huh? If you're wondering what the orange chunks are, that's because the farmers' market didn't have red bell pepper, so I used orange instead. Also, on a whim I sprinkled cilantro over the top of the soup this time and it was awesome, so I've added it as an optional ingredient below.

I’ve had this recipe for at least 5 years, but I don’t cook it too often. When I do make it, I enjoy it, but then I forget it, catch sight of it in my recipe book and wonder, “Really? Did I really like that enough to keep it?”, and decide to test it again. No more of such shenanigans! After cooking it yet again on Sunday night, I am definitively telling you: this is a good recipe.

It’s quite different from most of the things I make; I tend not to be into “exotic” international cooking, only because I figure I can’t possibly (at least, not without a great deal of specialty grocery shopping and effort) cook anything at home that will be as authentic and complex and awesome as the Pad Thai I can get just down the street from my apartment, for instance. I’d rather leave it to the pros. But although this soup has a lot of ingredients, they’re all basic. They marry together well and create a complex, multi-layered taste, but without any difficulty whatsoever on the chef’s part. Cut things up, add them to the pan in stages, cook them, and voila! A curried, coconutty, cheerfully yellow, hearty, vegetable-laden soup.

This recipe is so flawless, I didn’t even have to make a single change. No ingredient substitutions, no quantity adjustments, no comical errors! I wish I could remember where I found it.

2 tablespoons canola oil
2 medium onions, finely diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons minced gingerroot
2 cups (6 ounces) thinly sliced mushrooms
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
juice of 1 lemon
1 (14-ounce) can coconut milk
1 teaspoon salt
2 large boiling (waxy) potatoes, peeled and cut into ½-inch dice
1½ cups green beans, cut into 1-inch lengths
¼ cup finely diced red bell pepper
½ cup fine egg noodles or 1-inch pieces broken spaghetti
minced cilantro for garnish (if desired)

1. Warm oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add onions, garlic, and ginger and sauté, stirring often, 10 minutes or until onions are soft and golden.

2. Add mushrooms and sauté 5 minutes. Sprinkle on coriander, cumin, turmeric, and cayenne and cook 2 minutes, stirring often.

3. Pour in the stock, coconut milk, and salt, and bring to a boil. Add potatoes and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Mix in the green beans, red pepper, and noodles, and cook at a lively simmer for 10 minutes or until vegetables and noodles are tender. Stir in lemon juice.

Serves: 4–6
Time: 1 hour

QUICK GREEN BEAN “CASSEROLE”

For someone who thinks America’s Test Kitchen is too fussy, why am I posting two recipes from them in one week? Well, I have to admit those people do good work. I ripped a page on “Skillet Green Beans” out of a Cook’s Magazine I found in the lunchroom at work, and when I saw this updated take on what we Minnesotans call “green bean hot dish,” I had to try it. So I made a half-recipe on Monday night, as a side dish for Chicken Scaloppine With Parmesan. Verdict: I wouldn’t call it “quick,” exactly; it’s quicker than baking a casserole, I guess, but not something I see myself whipping up at the drop of a hat after a long day. It’s not difficult to make—the fact that it uses only one skillet is nice—but complicated enough that I found it challenging to make it while also trying to do a main dish (even one of my simpler chicken dish). The recipe just requires a little too much constant attention—there are no “let simmer for 30 minutes” steps where you can walk away and do something else. In the future, maybe I’d try some sort of baked chicken for the entrée, so it can cook while I devote my full concentration to the green beans. Because I would definitely make this again—it tastes great! Surprisingly like the real thing, and yet way better than the canned soup, canned green beans, and weird canned french-fried onions. I don’t think I got my shallots fried crisply enough (I suspect I got impatient and started before the oil was fully hot), but still? Very yummy, and it did pair nicely with the chicken. I was also thinking it might be possible to serve this over noodles as a main dish, if you had maybe just a little more sauce. Hmm, I’ll experiment and get back to you.

Postscript, December 2009: Meh, not worth it. I never made it again.

3 large shallots, sliced thin (about 1 cup)
Salt and ground black pepper
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 ounces cremini (brown) mushrooms, stems discarded, caps wiped clean and sliced ¼ inch thick
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 medium onion, minced (about 1 cup)
2 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (about 2 teaspoons)
1½ pounds green beans, stem ends trimmed
3 sprigs fresh thyme (the recipe wants you to use whole sprigs and remove them later, but I just used the leaves and left them in)
2 bay leaves
¾ cup heavy cream
¾ cup low-sodium chicken broth

1. Toss shallots with ¼ teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper, and 2 tablespoons flour in small bowl; set aside. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until smoking; add shallots and cook, stirring frequently, until golden and crisp, about 5 minutes. Transfer shallots with oil to baking sheet lined with triple layer of paper towels.

2. Wipe out skillet and return to medium-high heat. Add remaining 2 tablespoons oil, mushrooms, and ¼ teaspoon salt; cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 8 minutes. Transfer to plate and set aside.

3. Wipe out skillet. Heat butter in skillet over medium heat; when foaming subsides, add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until edges begin to brown, about 2 minutes. Stir in garlic and remaining tablespoon of flour, then toss in green beans, thyme, and bay leaves. Add cream and chicken broth, increase heat to medium-high, cover, and cook until beans are partly tender but still crisp at center, about 4 minutes. Add mushrooms and continue to cook, uncovered, until green beans are tender and sauce has thickened slightly, about 4 minutes. Off heat, discard bay leaves and thyme sprigs (as I said, I didn’t use the whole sprigs, just the leaves, which I left in, because I like thyme). Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. Transfer to serving dish, sprinkle evenly with shallots, and serve.

Serves: 8 as a side dish
Time: 30 minutes

PASTA PRIMAVERA

Holy cow, it's been a long time since I've posted a recipe--I've been cooking all this time, I swear, just not new stuff. For my birthday, I even made myself chocolate cupcakes, from scratch, with buttercream frosting. Since those were such basic recipes, pulled from the handy old Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, I don't feel compelled to post them here--but for my first cake-baking experience, everything turned out pretty well. I'm thinking yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting for A's birthday next week.

But I made this recipe the other day--er, week--and realized that although I've had it for a while, I hadn't made it yet since I moved to California, and thus it's not been written up here. And so I give you a very good recipe for Pasta Primavera, which to me is kind of like the uber-pasta, a blend of all the other pastas I make rolled into one, containing every prototypical pasta-sauce ingredient. Somehow the tomato/olive-oil/garlic/red-pepper-flake/basil gang meets the green-vegetable/mushroom/butter/cream/Parmesan gang and instead of roughing each other up, they get together and work out a plan for world peace. I don't make it too often--because do you need that much excitement that often?--but it's good stuff, and totally worth the extra steps and extra pans involved. Cook it in honor of spring!

6 cups of at least 3 of the following vegetables: broccoli florets, fresh or frozen peas, thin asparagus spears cut into 1-inch lengths, small diced zucchini, diced yellow squash, thin green beans cut into 1-inch lengths
salt to taste
1/2 pound fresh white or brown mushrooms, sliced
3/4 pound ripe plum tomatoes, cored and diced into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 medium cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
12 large basil leaves, shredded
freshly ground black pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 pound linguine
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus more to taste

1. Bring several quarts of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. (While it heats, I suggest you do all your prep work first, because this is a complicated recipe that demands your full attention. Cut up your 6 cups of vegetables and set them aside, each vegetable separately, which is a little fussy but that's how the recipe works. Snap the stems from the mushrooms, slice them thinly, set them aside. Mince the garlic, divide it in half, and set the two portions aside separately. Core and dice the tomatoes into 1/2-inch cubes and set them aside too. By the way, when I say "aside," I generally mean that I put the prepped ingredient into one of the five or six bowls I would later use for serving or storing the pasta. There's no point in dirtying a whole new dish for this, and it's not like putting some raw zucchini in a bowl is going to taint that bowl for holding cooked zucchini later.)

2. When the water boils, add the first vegetable, plus salt to taste. Cook until the vegetable is crisp-tender, about 30 seconds for frozen peas, 1 minute for zucchini or yellow squash, or 2 minutes for broccoli, green beans, fresh peas, or asparagus. (Be careful not to overcook the vegetables, because they will continue cooking after you remove them from the water thanks to their inner heat, and they're going to sit around waiting--and thus cooking--for a little while before they get used.) Use a slotted spoon to remove the blanched vegetables to a bowl, then add the next vegetable and cook it, and so forth until they're all together in the bowl.

3. While this is happening, set 4 quarts of salted water in a large pot on the stove and bring it to a boil for cooking the pasta.

4. Once the veggies are blanched and while the pasta water is heating, heat the olive oil in a medium pan over medium heat. When it's warm, add half the garlic and all the red pepper flakes and saute until the garlic is golden, about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are heated through, about 3 minutes. (Don't overcook the tomatoes--they should keep their shape.) Shred the basil and throw it in the pan with some salt and pepper to taste, then remove the pan from the heat and set it on a back burner.

5. Set a large skillet on the just-vacated medium-heat burner, add the butter, and melt it. Add the remaining garlic and saute it over medium heat until golden, about 2 minutes. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook, stirring often, until they release their juices, about 6 minutes, then season generously with salt and pepper.

6. Sometime during this process, the pasta water will boil; add the linguine and cook until al dente.

7. Add the blanched vegetables to the skillet with the mushrooms and cook them, tossing several times, until they're heated through, about 2 minutes. Then add the cream to the skillet and simmer it until it thickened a bit, 2-3 minutes. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust the seasonings if necessary.

8. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and then toss it into the skillet with the sauce, the tomato mixture, and the Parmesan. Serve it with a little more grated cheese and pepper sprinkled on each serving.

Serves: 6
Time: 1 hour

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

My nose has been hideously runny lately, so I thought some medicinal food might do me some good. And can you believe I’ve never made chicken noodle soup before? It’s a pretty improvisational business—when I went to consult my mom’s recipe, I found it didn’t contain any measurements, so I lifted some from my Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook; this represents a combination of the two versions. The result was supremely easy, and very tasty. Combined with homemade rolls, this represents the most fully from-scratch meal I’ve ever attempted. I could just feel the wholesomeness oozing out of it.

My mom’s recipe suggests you take a whole chicken, cut up, boil it with vegetables and water to make the stock, and then strain out the chicken and pull the meat off the bones for this soup. This is an efficient method and will result in the best-tasting soup. But I had already made my stock last week, with a chicken carcass, so that wasn’t going to work for me. Instead, I took a boneless chicken breast and some boneless chicken thigh meat, poached them in a covered pan with a little water until they were cooked through, then cubed them and added them to the soup. You can do whatever suits you better: this recipe is very flexible. It will also be just fine if you use frozen vegetables and dried herbs—but make every effort to use fresh, and you’ll be abundantly rewarded.

4½ cups homemade chicken broth
½ cup chopped onion (about 1 medium)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil, or ½ teaspoon dried
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano, or ½ teaspoon dried
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, or ½ teaspoon dried
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
1 bay leaf
10 ounces fresh or frozen mixed vegetables, or more to taste (I usually use fresh carrots, celery, corn, and green beans, eyeballing the quantities)
1 cup egg noodles
2 cups cubed or shredded cooked chicken
chopped fresh parsley to taste

1. Place the vegetables, onion, basil, oregano, and rosemary in a large soup pot along with the pepper, salt (you’ll have to adjust this depending on the saltiness of your broth), bay leaf, and broth.

2. Bring the soup to boiling, then stir in the noodles. Return the soup to boiling, reduce the heat, and simmer it for about 8 minutes, until the noodles are al dente. Discard the bay leaf, add the chicken to the soup, and cook for a few more minutes until everything is heated through. Add some fresh parsley and serve.

Serves: 4-6
Time: 30 minutes

PASTA ASCIUTTA

Don’t ask me when I made this. Thursday night, maybe? Last week was a slow BookCook week—one night of unexpected pizza, one night of a rerun recipe (steak tacos, of which I can now say that an extra day of marination, due to having the aforementioned unexpected pizza on the day tacos were originally planned, was not at all a bad thing). Other things not to ask me: where I got this recipe, or what the word “asciutta” means. Although if I had to take a guess, it means “delicious but insanely decadent,” because the original version of this recipe calls for ¾ cup olive oil, ½ cup butter, and 1 cup cheese. In addition, of course, to the carbolicious pasta and potatoes. I am not one to shy away from such things, but even to me that seems excessive. By all means, feel free to try the original version, but I managed to reduce the quantities slightly and still produce a very good meal. It’s not just about the cheese, butter, and oil, but also the green beans (I do love green beans), the sweetness of the onions, and the plentiful garlic. It reminds me of pasta mixed with garlic mashed potatoes, but fresher, less overwhelming than that. Highly recommended, though maybe in small, infrequent doses.

6 medium red potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 pound fresh green beans, washed and trimmed
1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil
12 cloves garlic, quartered
1 onion, chopped
1 pound fettuccine or lingune
¼ cup butter
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
¼ cup shredded fresh basil

1. Bring a medium pot of lightly salted water to a boil for cooking the potatoes. When it boils, dump the potatoes in and cook until they're tender, being careful not to overook. While the potatoes are cooking, steam the green beans until they're tender but still crisp (the recipe says 10-12 minutes, but I don’t think I cooked them that long). Once the beans are steaming away, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil for cooking the pasta.

2. So, while the potatoes are boiling, the beans are steaming, and the pasta water is heating (this is a multitasking recipe), heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When the oil is warm, add the onions and garlic and sauté until they're very tender and golden.

3. When the potatoes finish cooking, drained them. When the beans finish cooking, remove them from the heat. When the pasta water boils, add the pasta.

4. When the onions and garlic are cooked, add the butter to the pan and heat until it's melted. Then add the potatoes, green beans, and about ½ teaspoon salt, toss well, and turn off the heat.

5. When the pasta is al dente, remove about ½ cup of the starchy pasta water. Then drain the pasta and add it to the skillet with the sauce. Toss the pasta and sauce with the cheese, basil, and a lot of pepper. If the pasta clumps or seems dry, add some pasta water (or you can add a little more olive oil instead, if you want).

Serves: 6
Time: 45 minutes

PASTA WITH BUTTERED GREEN BEANS, PINE NUTS, AND PARMESAN

This is one of my favorite pasta recipes, again from Pasta e Verdura. I made it on Thursday night. I swear, though, we don't usually consume so much butter. Normally, we burn through bottles of olive oil in no time and have the same one-pound box of butter in the refrigerator for weeks on end. But some strange alignment of the stars has us swimming in butter like the French lately. Not that I'm complaining about that, mind you.

This recipe is quick, easy, and has a simple, perfect confluence of flavors--green, buttery, garlicky, salty, and nutty. Even if, like A, you don't care for green beans, you should try it. Green beans may be one of my favorite vegetables (along with asparagus and zucchini), so I downright crave this pasta. The original recipe has you using haricots verts (thin, French green beans), but--pshaw, I say! Use them if you can find them, but plain old fat farmer's-market or grocery-store green beans work just fine. This recipe is even decent if the beans are below-average quality or out of season.

Man, just writing about this recipe has me wanting to heat up the leftovers sitting in my fridge.

1 pound green beans
salt to taste, plus 1 teaspoon
1/4 cup pine nuts
6 tablespoons butter
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound penne pasta
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more to taste

1. Bring two pots of salted water to a boil--4 quarts for cooking the pasta, and "several" for cooking the green beans. (Sometimes, reader, I cheat. If you want a shortcut, you can boil one 4-quart pot of salted water, cook the green beans in it, and then remove them with a slotted spoon and add the pasta.)

2. On another burner, set a large skillet over medium heat for toasting the pine nuts. When the skillet is warm, add the pine nuts and cook them, shaking the pan periodically to turn them, until they're golden-brown, about 5 minutes. (If you're somewhat inattentive, as I am, or if you have a particularly hot stove, as I do, I'd put them over medium-low heat to reduce your chances of accidentally burning them.) When they're toasted, remove them and set them aside in a bowl.

3. While waiting for the water to boil and the pine nuts to toast, wash the beans well, snap their ends off, and cut them (the beans, not the ends), into one-inch segments.

4. When the water in the smaller pot boils, add the beans and cook them until just tender, about 2 minutes. (Unless they're the hugest, toughest beans in the world, don't cook them longer than this. Remember, they'll still continue to cook after you've removed them from the water.) When they're cooked, drain them and set them aside. Meanwhile, when the water in the larger pot boils, add the pasta and cook until al dente.

5. Add butter to the now-empty skillet you used for the pine nuts, keeping it over medium heat. When the butter starts to foam, add the garlic and saute until golden, about 2 minutes. Stir in the green beans, pine nuts, 1 teaspoon of salt, and pepper, and heat everything through for several minutes (or until the beans are completely tender).

6. BEFORE YOU DRAIN THE PASTA (I often miss this step in the recipe, so I'm giving you warning capital letters), use a measuring cup to scoop out about 1/4 cup of the starchy pasta water. Then go ahead and drain the pasta.

7. In the skillet (if it's large enough), the pot, or some kind of serving dish (if you're that sort of fancy person), toss the hot pasta with the green bean sauce, 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese, and the reserved cooking water. When everything is well mixed together, portion out the pasta into serving/storage bowls, and then top each portion with an extra little sprinkle of cheese and a few grindings of black pepper.

Serves: 4-6
Time: 30 minutes if you time everything perfectly? Maybe 45.