I'm Alive! With a Recipe!

Not that you'd know it from this poor neglected blog, but I am still alive, and I have been cooking. The cooking has been much less time and labor intensive since the arrival of LC, but I'm working on getting back in the groove.

I have been planning our meals around the wonderful produce in our CSA. Since we often get the same things several weeks in a row as they hit their peak harvest, it's forced me to cook outside the box, and find new and creative ways to prepare veggies. Tonight, we we had Margarita Fish Tacos with Chipotle-Lime Mayo to use our arugula, and I wanted to make a side dish with our green beans (It seems like we've been eating green beans for months...and they're still coming!). Regular old steamed green beans can be kinda boring, and I wanted to find some way to tie the green beans in with the rest of the meal. So I did what I do best and I started playing. The resulting Chipotle Green Beens were surprisingly good.


Chipotle Green Beans (all amounts approximate)

1/2 lb green beans, trimmed
olive oil
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp chili powder
1/4 c. water
1/2 c. cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 tsp. adobo sauce from canned chipotle chilis

1. Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add green beans, and season with salt and pepper, cumin and chili powder. Saute for about a minute. Add water, cover, and steam for about 3 minutes or until crisp tender. Uncover, and cook until water boils off. Add adobo sauce and tomatoes and cook until mixed and tomatoes begin to soften and brown.

As I was making this, I was skeptical. I was planning on giving Psycling my standard disclaimer that this was an experiment and I wouldn't be offended of he didn't like it. But they were actually really good. I like using the saute/steam method for green beans because the sauteing really brings out the flavor, and the steaming gets them to just the right texture. I also really like adding tomatoes to my green beans. The flavors work well together, and they provide a nice visual contrast as well. The cumin (one of my favorite spices), chili powder, and adobo sauce were surprisingly good on the beans, and this made for a perfect side dish to our fish tacos.

Now...I just need to figure out what to do with the billionth bag of green beans we got today. And the arugula. Apparently it's arugula season. Any ideas?