RECIPE AT THE TOP #8: beans + greens on toast with quick spring pickles
my take on brothy bean goodness
Yes! Here is the recipe: AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE. Blurb comes after — what a concept 🤯
BEANS + GREENS
Ingredients
2T EVOO
1 medium onion, diced
6-7 cloves garlic, minced
2 bunches hearty greens, thinly sliced then chopped
mix + match: chard, collard greens, kale
1 tsp Herbes de Provence
5-6 stalks celery, thinly sliced
4 cups cooked kidney beans
2 cups broth of choice
2T dijon mustard
1T red wine vinegar
kosher salt + freshly cracked pepper, to taste
Directions
heat EVOO in a large Dutch oven over medium high heat until shimmering, sauté the onions until soft, add a pinch of kosher salt to help release extra moisture from the onions
when the onions start to lightly brown, add the garlic and stir to evenly combine, cook 1 minute or until garlic becomes fragrant
add the greens and cook until fully wilted, then add the Herbes de Provence, celery, and beans, mix to combine
add the broth and turn the heat up to high to bring the liquid to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer, cover and cook 10-15 minutes
add the mustard and vinegar, then season to taste with salt and pepper
Serve as a side dish or as a main dish in a bowl and spoon over toast per bite. Garnish with the little pickle relish idea I have for you next.
QUICK PICKLES - SPRING EDITION
I’ve talked about quick pickling before, but a there’s just so much that’s coming back to flood the markets soon. I think we all could use a little refresher.
Take almost whatever produce you’d like, or whatever might be sadly beckoning out to you to be used soon, and cover it with white vinegar, water, salt, and sugar. Et voila, the most perfect way to acidify your meal, done in like 5 minutes.
What did I have on hand for this quick pickling session?
Slightly-less-firm-than-desirable radishes, half an English cucumber, and the leftover stems from the bunch of baby chard I used for the above rendition of beans + greens. Waste not want not, bitches.
The How-To: fill a jar with your chopped vegetables — pour white vinegar to halfway up the jar and fill it the rest of the way with water to cover the vegetables — add equal parts kosher salt and granulated sugar (for a 12 oz mason jar, I always do 1 tsp of each) — secure the lid and shake until the salt and sugar has dissolved — let sit a minimum of 5 minutes before using.
Fun idea that I stumbled upon while going down this road of making up my own lazy pickles: you can add vegetables to the jar as you go. Say you use about half of it one week but have some sad and unused produce sitting in your crisper drawer. Go ahead and chop it up, add it to your random pickle jar. It’s better than just throwing it away.
Living with and feeding two guys is tough. I have to sneak vegetables into everything. My son is a vegetable lover, but this mostly applies to fresh vegetables. Cooked vegetables? It depends. Roasted things get devoured, but braised greens are only just now starting to be “acceptable”. And then there’s my husband, who does not think to eat anything that resembles a plant of his own accord. It’s a heavy weight to carry.
Beans? Also not really a favorite in this household. But I am determined to keep serving them because it’s so important to not depend entirely on meat as a protein source.
Spacing out our meat consumption can only yield favorable results — for the environment (investing in meat from local, sustainably raised animals = less harmful farming practices), for our wallets (beans are most definitely cheaper than meat), for our community (supporting local farmers, spreading out the meat distribution between consumers), and for our for our overall health (we need all the fiber 💩)
What I love about this recipe is how flexible it is. I know that I have it listed above with a very specific flavor profile in mind, but you could just as easily pivot and use herbs, spices, and acids in line with just about any cuisine you could think of. Instead of Herbes de Provence, use some oregano, cumin, and top with feta and fresh parsley, maybe some finely chopped olives? You have something vaguely Mediterranean. Switch out the kidney beans for black beans; use oregano, cumin, smoked paprika; take out the dijon and red wine vinegar and replace it with a paste made from rehydrated and blended dried chiles and lime juice.
And if this format doesn’t go over well for you or your loved ones, try smashing it all together (with less broth of course), adding some breadcrumbs until it resembles a dough, form little patties and make bean burgers.
SARAH’S FARMERS MARKET HAUL
This was the first outdoor market of the year! Hooray, we don’t have to shop for our produce in a middle school cafeteria anymore!
Folks, I can’t even describe the giddiness that came over me to see a tortilla + masa vendor at the market this morning. The timing of this is incredible because I just made a large amount of chorizo + chicken liver taco meat, and was not looking forward to buying more tortillas at the grocery store. The stars have aligned.
In October 2020, I was on a trip to visit friends in Philly and bought masa dough from South Philly Barbacoa and drove it all the way home to Indiana. Ever since then, I have been dreaming about the day that I would find ready-made masa again, and here we are!
I’ve made my own masa dough before but it just was never the same taste or texture as you’d find in a place that makes their own tortillas. It takes a very particular type of corn and preparation (nixtamalization) to make the masa dough that has provided brilliant nutrition for indigenous peoples in Central America for centuries, if not millennia. I’m sure that masa dough is way easier to find in communities that have had large and long-standing Hispanic populations, so I am beyond thrilled and grateful to have access to this very special product at my Midwestern farmers market.
May 3
produce: 2 bunches green garlic, 1 bunch dill, 2 bunches tuscan kale, 1 bunch french radishes ($20); 2 bunches asparagus ($16); 2.25 pounds rhubarb ($16.64)
protein: 2 pounds flank steak + 2 pounds chicken livers ($80.60)
miscellaneous: yellow corn tortillas + blue corn masa dough ($11.10)
total spent = $144.34
other ingredients on hand, from last week or in freezer:
kidney beans
pork shoulder
potential recipes, off the top of my dome:
grilled flank steak + asparagus
garden herb butter (dill, parsley, oregano)
charred green garlic + rosemary butter
rhubarb pie
steamed kale + radish greens with lemon chive vinaigrette (I never got around to this last week / kept forgetting)
french breakfast radishes with above herb butters + salt on toast
mexican beans + greens (kale, cumin, oregano, smoke paprika, lime juice, homemade chile paste)
crockpot carnitas
blue corn tortillas (for leftover chorizo/chicken liver taco meat + crockpot carnitas)
This meme came up for me recently on my Instagram scrolling, and nothing really describes my brain better at the beginning of farmers market season.
I haven’t been great about this for the past couple of weeks, but follow my Substack Notes (on the app) to see how this week of recipes unfolds. And tune in next Saturday for another farmers market haul!
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here.
❤️ Sarah