Tomato Celebration

Oooooooh, pretty!  Green beans lend themselves to so many flavor profiles.  They're so amiable, even kids usually love them.  Plus, they're fun to eat if you use your fingers (highly encouraged in dipping situations).  But for me, serving them dressed in a dill vinaigrette with red onion and goat cheese can't be beat.  Unless, of course, you throw that over some lettuce and add some tuna!  If you were to try only one recipe from this blog, let it be this one (I'm not using much foresight here.  What if the next post brings an even better dish...)  Still, this is so worth trying, because it tastes so great, and is such a breeze to whip up.  And even though green beans are perfectly good with some butter and maybe a few almonds, perhaps you just need a change.  So.  Steam the beans (about a pound, tips removed) for a few minutes until crisp-tender.  Then plunge them in ice water to stop the cooking.  Whisk up a vinaigrette with olive oil (3 T), lemon juice (or vinegar- I used champagne vinegar- 2 T), dill (fresh is truly best- 2 T, but dried will do in a pinch- 1/2 T), salt and pepper.  In a bowl, toss the green beans with the vinaigrette, sliced red onion (1/4 cup), and goat cheese (1/4 cup).  Feta is nice, but I tried a lovely local goat cheese that was much milder.  It did the trick just fine, because it still had that tang.  Here comes the hardest part:  let it chill for 20-30 minutes while the flavors marry.  Then eat it up!  This is best eaten the day you make it, because the beans will be so lovely and bright green, but truth be told, it's still yummy after a day or two, just not as pretty.  This makes it an ideal candidate for a leftover to take for lunch.  Sooo good!

And how about tomatoes?  All year I shun tomatoes because the mealy, tasteless supermarket tomatoes on offer in midwinter just don't compare to the amazing, firm, juicy, flavorful, vibrant tomatoes you can find locally when the time is right!  The heirloom varieties are so gorgeous!  Yellows, oranges, every shade of red, purple, stripey green.  I came into some super-ripe tomatoes recently, and they were begging to become a sauce.  So, I sweated some diced onion, added minced garlic, a pinch of crushed red pepper, diced carrots and diced green pepper, and lots of chopped tomatoes.  Then I let the lot cook down for a few hours, getting the house smelling mighty good.  I stirred fairly regularly, and when I knew I would be distracted, I simply turned the heat down until I could devote more attention to it.  This keeps the bottom from burning.  When the flavor and consistency were to my liking, I stirred in some capers and let the whole thing cool off.  The next day I froze most of it and saved some for yummy pasta.  I left it very mildly seasoned so I could make adjustments in my final dishes.  You can add salt, but it's mighty hard to take it out...

And now for another low effort, high payoff dish:  Crisp!  Again- use what's in abundance!  I had peaches for days, and I got some blueberries in my CSA box, so I used that.  In the end, I only had a few blueberries to add since my fiance loves blueberries, and most of them found their way into his breakfast...  So about crisp:  I love this dessert, because who doesn't love a little crunchy goodness?  It's way easier than pie, and so super yummy.  First make the topping:  3/4 cup each of flour, oats, brown sugar and butter.  Chop the butter into little pieces, then cut everything in together until it's well combined.  Then let it chill while you prepare the filling.  Just slice up some fruit (I went with 4 pounds of peaches and maybe 1/4 cup blueberries.  Really.  That's all that was left.  He ate that many.)  Toss the fruit with 1 1/2 T flour.  Then pour the fruit in a 2 qt dish.  Actually, use a 2 1/2 qt dish, because as you can see in the photo, I couldn't fit it all in a 2 qt dish, and had to make a cute little mini crisp in a large ramekin.  Then top with the topping and bake in a 375 degree oven.  Check it after 30 minutes, and turn it if your oven doesn't bake evenly (most don't).  Then cook another 15 minutes or so, until the fruit is cooked through and bubbly and the top is a lovely golden brown.  It helps to bake it on a cookie sheet unless you enjoy scraping goo off the bottom of your oven.  (This way you can scrape goo off the cookie sheet, which is slightly less annoying.)  Let it sit and cool on a wire rack to prevent tongue burns, then serve with vanilla ice cream.  You'll want to make this over and over, because it's easy, breezy, and too delicious!  Enjoy!