Beans, Beans, The Magical Fruit

We have a tower of beans, a fountain of beans. These are green and yellow filet beans which I wrote about earlier. We have had them for weeks and they are so high, we can't reach some of them. We pick a big bowlful every day and they keep coming. We have given some away and we are eating them every day. They are tasty sauteed with other vegetables but I think I like them best steamed where you can taste their flavor. I must admit, I have never been a fan of string beans, but they have such a great flavor when they are fresh and steamed.



We also pickled some. These pickles are made with white wine vinegar, white wine, water, salt, sugar, corriander, mustard seeds, peppercorns, bay leaf, dried jalapeño pepper and a couple of cloves of garlic. In this recipe you heat the liquid with the sugar and salt and put everything else in a safe container (I used heat resistant glass) and pour the hot liquid on top, which blanches the beans. Then you let them cool and put it in the fridge. I guess you could can them, but I they will last in the fridge for quite a while. Green beans taste good but are not as pretty as yellow ones. You can put other veggies in the brine with the string beans as well. I got some colorful carrots from the farmers market and put them in this batch. They are a delicious complement to sandwiches and salads.

We also planted scarlet runner beans which we are planning to harvest for dry shelling beans. My aunt gave me the seeds a few years ago and I have been growing them for a couple of years. I saved the seeds from last year. We cooked and ate them a couple of times and found them to be delicous. They are really neat looking, too before you cook them. Then they lose their pattern and turn brown.