One of those dead easy side dishes

I love it when a plan comes together.

It happens so rarely for me.

Sometimes you just need the simplest of ingredients to pull off an all star dish. Heck, this is so easy, I don't even know if I can call it a recipe.

Either way, we ate it with Oprah's Lentil and Rice Burgers, and it was delicious.

Sautéd Green Beans with Crispy Garlic

(adapted from Cooking Light)

Ingredients

1 lb green beans, topped and tailed
2-3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
½ tbsp unsalted butter
½ tbsp olive oil
kosher salt and pepper to taste

Directions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add in green beans and cook for 5 minutes. Remove from heat when tender crisp, drain and plunge into ice water to stop the cooking. Set aside.

2. Melt butter and oil in a saucepan over medium low heat. Add in garlic cloves and sauté for 30 seconds to 1 minute, or until just the right side of golden brown. Garlic burns very quickly, so if you feel at all concerned, sauté just until starting to colour. Remove garlic from pan and set aside.

3. Drain beans again and add to the garlic butter in the saucepan. Season to taste with salt and pepper then mix in the garlic again. Plate and serve hot.

A Smoky Chopped Salad for a Hot Day

Last week, the temperature in Toronto hit a brutal 40º C with the humidex.

Let me be clear on one thing: I am not one of those Canadians who sits around dreaming of the scorching summer sun. I like the heat; I hate the humidity.

Perhaps it's the fact that we have no outdoor space in our apartment (which means all cooking gets done inside), perhaps it's the lack of central air to cool ourselves off at night, perhaps it's the memory of the smell of the summer when the garbage collectors went on strike. Whatever the reason, I really, really dislike Toronto when the heat and humidity hits.

This is one of those recipes designed to embrace the flavour of the heat and humidity, but to avoid heating too much up in the kitchen.

The whole thing comes together really quickly, and you can keep any extra salad dressing in the fridge for 3 days.

Chicken & Chickpea Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing

Ingredients

Dressing

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 smashed clove garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp ancho chili powder

Salad

2 romaine hearts, washed, dried and chopped
2 cup mixed sprouts (pea, sunflower, radish, etc)
½ lb grilled boneless, skinless chicken thighs
½ 19 oz can chickpeas, rinsed
2 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 oz blue cheese, crumbled
½ pint cherry tomatoes, halved
½ avocado, chopped
5-6 cremini mushrooms, sliced

optional: pickled jalapenos or green beans (I love Toorshi Hot and Savoury Green Beans)

Directions

1. Whisk together all dressing ingredients. Set aside and let sit for an hour so the garlic can infuse the dressing.

2. Toss together salad ingredients. Discard garlic clove and dress the salad. Serve on chilled plates.

That was dead easy, wasn't it?

Beans, beans, beans

Sometimes it surprises me how often legumes appear on our table. Like most of my ingredients, I don't purposely set out to use them over, say, a steak. What I've come to realize is I like how easy they are to deal with, how inexpensive they are to buy, and how delicious the recipes end up being.

What has shocked me, at least in terms of legume based revelations, is the realization that I'm just as happy with a great bean salad as I am with a t-bone steak. I know, for a lot of people that's sacrilege! I'm not a vegetarian or vegan by a long shot, and I doubt I ever will be, but I do really appreciate the message that's behind a lot of vegan and vegetarian blogs: if you have a great recipe and execute it well - you won't miss the meat.

That's the biggest lesson I've learned from my Vegan Mondays with Kat. We try a ton of stuff that I would have considered weird in my past life, but in the end we (almost always) produce a delicious meal. How can you possibly miss meat when you've eaten until bursting and had your taste buds excited?

And so, I find myself cooking less and less meat, not out of a conscious choice, but more because there are other recipes I long to try. For reasons not entirely known to me, I keep coming back to bean salads.

This recipe is loosely riffed off of one of Mark Bittman's, though his proportions produce a salad that I find a bit too dry (my husband thought it was perfect, but he's not the one cooking it). I wanted to beef the whole thing up with more herbs as well.

I brought this for lunch twice last week and was very sad when I ran out.

Broiled Bean Salad

(adapted from Mark Bittman)

Ingredients

1 tbsp oil, divided
½ lb green or wax beans, topped & tailed and cut into 1" lengths
1 14oz can chickpeas, drained, rinsed and dried
½ shallot, thinly sliced
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1. Turn on the broiler of your oven. Place a rack approximately 5" below it. (You may wish to do this in the reverse order, if you'd prefer to handle a cool rack!)

2. On a baking sheet toss green beans with ½ tbsp of the olive oil. Place under the broiler, and broil for 7 minutes, tossing half way through until the beans have patches of dark brown. Place into a large bowl.

3. Using the same baking sheet, toss chickpeas together with remaining  olive oil and broil for 5-8 minutes, again, tossing to brown halfway through the cooking time. Pour into the bowl with the green beans.

4. While beans are cooling slightly, mix together sliced shallots, minced garlic, vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. Pour over still warm (but not pipping hot) beans and toss to coat. Let sit at room temperature for at least an hour so the flavours have a chance to meld. You can store the salad in the fridge for a few days at this point. Toss with herbs right before serving.