Garden Variety

The garden is beginning to kick into gear with lovely varieties of all kinds of goodies. The broccoli, kale, cabbage (both green and red) and beets are choices I can harvest for meals. The weeds noticed that we had been busy in the hayfield and they decided to take over the garden, I’ve been working here and there to try to get ahead of them but right now they are winning the battle.

The beans are really starting to produce and we pick a good bunch of the them every other day or so. Half of the bunch gets cooked for the meal while the other half gets snapped into one to two inch segments to be frozen for winter time meals. By only processing a few beans at a time, I am able to keep up on this row of  veggies while still small and tender while not wearing myself out snapping for hours on end.

My recipe for the best beans

• Just pulled garlic, I mince two or three cloves
• Fresh onion, I chop about a quarter cup
• One tablespoon butter

I lightly brown the garlic and onion in the butter then add enough fresh picked beans to fill a 12 inch fry pan half-way. I do not bother to chop, snap or slice them, just put them whole into the pan.

Quick stir fry on high heat until the first beans start to get a brown edge, then turn off the heat  leaving the pan on the burner and cover with tight lid. The whole process takes less than 10 minutes and the beans come out perfectly seasoned, and still have a bit of crunch left to them. I never seem to have leftovers.