veggies | Annie's Kitchen Therapy

If you need a healthy, easy to prepare side dish try this:

Buy a bag of fresh string beans (haricot verts if you’re fancy) snip off the stem side (top of picture below):

After snipping and cleaning, submerge the string beans into rapidly boiling, salted water and cook for 7-8 minutes (we like ours on the crunchy side but if you don’t, just cook longer). When done cooking, blanch the string beans by dumping into strainer and rinsing with very cold ice water. Blanching the string beans will bring back the bright green color of the string beans

(Science tip: Blanching stops enzyme actions which would otherwise cause loss of flavor, color and texture.)

Place blanched string beans in serving dish, drizzle with a little EVOO, season with kosher salt, pepper and diced red onion (or whatever spices you like) and serve!

What can I say? I’m a sucker when either my daughter or hubby have a craving for a dish that I can make. I fuss and make like I’m too busy but truth is I love it (don’t tell them!) Yesterday, the princess was craving a pasta salad…so I starting prepping and this is what happened:

I had some good fresh stuff waiting to be used in the fridge. No two of my pasta salads are ever the same. For this particular salad I tossed in: feta cheese, chopped mixed bell peppers (mostly for color), chopped red onion, chopped soppressata, chopped olives, chopped marinated artichoke hearts, grape tomatoes, and fresh parsley.

It’s so easy to pull together: boil you choice of pasta till al dente (about 8 minutes), drain and rise under cold water. Toss in a few drops of EVOO and stir around. In a large bowl add all freshly chopped ingredients and cooled pasta. Add salt, pepper, oregano and a bit more EVOO and toss well. Voila!

Note: Any fresh veggies work in this. Basil and mint are great adds too if you have them. Mozzarella or goat cheese or pana grano could replace the feta. Also, in place of adding your own seasoning you could add in an envelope of dried salad dressing mix (italian, ranch, whatever) with the EVOO and a little white vinegar if you like.

This is a great side dish or even a quick main dish.