Summer Bean Salad

I have a serious thing for vinegar. I can't get enough of it. It took Nic years to get used to eating my salads because of the amount of vinegar I put on them. In middle school, our science teacher asked who wanted to volunteer to drink a tablespoon of straight vinegar, and obviously I volunteered. (I have no idea what that had to do with science, or what it was supposed to teach us.)

I think my love of vinegar was ingrained in me as a child. My great grandmother used to make green salads that had so much salt and vinegar on them, they made your jaw ache just to eat them. Her salad was always my favorite: romaine leaves, salt, red wine vinegar, olive oil. I don't even think she put black pepper on it. It was glorious.



I've been making this bean salad all summer, ever since string beans showed up at the farmer's market. I make it every week, and eat it for days until I finish off the batch. It gets better every day, as the beans soak up the vinegar. This weekend, I finally made myself measure what I put in the salad so I could share it with you. I toned down the vinegar to a respectable half of a cup, still quite strong, but I think most people can handle it... Then I secretly added more.


Summer Bean Salad
Sort of a riff on this recipe, I posted last year.
Serves 6.

You can use string beans or a combination of green beans and wax beans (yellow) for this salad. I like to have both for the color if I can find them. You can also sub out some of the chick peas and kidney beans for cannelloni beans, if you prefer.
Ingredients:
10 oz. string beans
15 oz. chick peas
15 oz. kidney beans
3 cloves of minced garlic
1 scallion, minced (or 1/4 cup minced onion)
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley (or 2-3 tbs. dry parsley)
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3 tbs. olive oil

Directions:
-Steam or blanch the green beans, cooking for only a few minutes. They should still be crisp and brightly colored.
-Rinse the green beans with cold water, and chop into 1/2 inch pieces.
-In a large bowl combine all of the ingredients. Let sit for at least one hour in the fridge to let the flavors meld.
-Serve cold or at room temperature. Lasts for 2-3 days in the fridge.

Traffic Light Chili: Three Years in the Making

When you are cooking for the masses, and you're not sure exactly how many that is, this is the perfect recipe. In college whenever I made a batch of this I was amazed how many people it fed, and how many people showed up to eat it. I never had a name for it, but I wanted something clever for the blog and the green, yellow, red... and orange peppers make this chili really colorful. And delish. Other than the peppers, there are four different kinds of beans, onion, tons of seasoning, and corn. No meat, but with all that other good stuff, who needs it?

I said it was three years in the making, but really I haven't changed the recipe much since I got back from Egypt. I started making it when I was living there, and made it probably at least two times a month (X10 months) for my roommates and a handful of other Americans living there, who humored me and ate it over and over and over again until I got the flavors just right. The only thing that has changed since I moved back is adding black beans, which weren't available there, and sadly I don't have Egyptian beer (Sakkara or Stella), which was so bad it was almost good.

I always said I wanted to enter this in a chili cook off, but until that day comes, I'm sending it to a blog event called Fourth Helping of Susan's My Legume Love Affair.


Traffic Light Chili
Ingredients:
olive oil
8-10 cloves garlic, minced
2 medium vidalia onions, roughly chopped
1 each: red, yellow, orange, and green bell pepper, roughly chopped (4 peppers total)
1 12 oz. bottle beer
2 cans black beans, drained*
2 cans kidney beans, drained*
1 can garbanzo beans (chick peas), drained*
1 can cannelini beans, drained*
1 28 0z. jar crushed tomatoes
1 6 0z. can tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 tbs. cinnamon
1 tbs. chili powder
1 1/2 tbs. paprika
1/2 tbs. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. kosher salt
1/2 can corn*
(For added spice you can add chopped jalapenos, a dash of hot sauce or crushed red pepper. I've tried all three.)

*15.5 oz.

Directions:
-Heat olive oil in a large sauce pan over medium-high heat. Add garlic and onion and simmer until it starts to soften. Add peppers. Cook for five minutes, stirring occasionally.
-Pour in about half of a bottle of beer. (I used Yuengling.)
-Add all the beans, crushed tomatoes and tomato paste. Stir in seasoning.
-When the chili starts to simmer, lower the heat to low and continue to stir occasional for 30-45 minutes or until the peppers are just soft. Add more of the beer if the chili starts to get too thick. Add the corn in and leave on the heat for 10 more minutes so the corn heats through.