Broad Green Beans

Broad Green Beans – The Swiss Way – Christian’s Recipe

This recipe is super simple but very, very good.  The result will surprise you.  The secret is to cook the beans and tomatoes for a long time, reducing the tomato.  It is really easy to grow broad beans – we grow scarlet bee runner beans.  The flowers are pretty enough to use the plant as an ornamental and let it grow up a pergola or wall. Sometimes you can buy organic broad beans at farmers markets or organic farms.  Most people don't know how to cook them, but they are easier to grow and harvest than string beans.  

Ingredients:

-Snap and wash approx. 3.3 lb broad beans (1500 g).

-2 onions

-a few sprigs of winter or summer savory

-approx. 2-3 lbs tomatoes

-2 cloves garlic
-sea salt to taste
-organic olive oil (Costco)

Prep and Cooking:

Dice: 2 onions (0.85 lb or 388 g); sauté in olive oil (and some salt) till translucent. 

Add the beans and the rest of 0.42 oz salt (12 g -- about 2 tsp, depending on the kind of salt).

Stir occasionally.  The beans will release liquid for steaming.

Cut 2.6 lb tomatoes (1183 g) into large chunks; add. 

Add the summer savory – you can just add the entire stem and take the bare stem out after cooking.

Squeeze 3 cloves of garlic (3/4 oz or 21 g) into pan.

Reduce well.  Cooking time: about an hour.

Preserving Summer - Slow Roasted Tomatoes To Use All Winter

PRESERVING SUMMER -  SLOW ROASTED TOMATOES

Buy all of the organic tomatoes you can in the summer from farmer’s markets and farms and slow roast them.  Tomatoes from the supermarket tend to be bland and expensive.  Canned tomatoes may contain BPA.  This method produces a concentrated tomato taste and the tomatoes can then be frozen and turned into spaghetti sauce, chili, or any number of dishes in a short time all winter long.  You can even use cherry tomatoes – they make a very special sweet spaghetti sauce. 

When I use them from the freezer for an easy sauce I just sweat onions, chop the frozen tomatoes quickly and add them to the pan with a few herbs like parsley or rosemary – this takes all of 10 minutes and it will be the best tomato sauce you’ve ever made.  For a fancier sauce add black oil cured olives, a few hot pepper flakes, salt preserved capers and a bit of tuna, canned mackerel, or anchovy from Vital Choice (no BPA in the cans) and cook with the translucent onions for a few minutes, then add the tomatoes and cook for about 6 to 10 minutes.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients:

-        Fresh organic tomatoes (preferably bought in bulk). 

-        Organic olive oil (optional)

Prep and Cooking:

-        Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

-        Plan to roast tomatoes of the same type on each cookie sheet. 

-        First half each tomato then place them all together on a cookie sheet (I use parchment under them).  If desired, sprinkle with organic olive oil.

-        Roast at this low heat until shriveled and slightly caramelized (brown). 

Christian helped me with a few batches and here are his notes:

Cherry
1" diameter.

Cut in half, turn cut side up.  (1.4 lb cover 1 square foot, about 2/3 of a cookie sheet.)  Drizzle with olive oil. --> duration 2 hours.

Plum

3" long, 2"diameter.  Preferably same size; otherwise, take smaller ones out of the oven earlier, when they're done.

Halve lengthwise, cut out stems and rough spots on skin.  Brush cut surface with olive oil (covers them more evenly than drizzling).

--> duration 5 hours.