Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Green Beans with Lemon and Pine Nuts


This side dish is very simple but really flavorful and a nice way to use fresh green beans. I found it on epicurious and used some beans from the Farmer’s Market and fresh parsley from our garden. As is my usual practice I substituted lemon juice for lemon zest because I’m beginning to think lemon zest is part of some sort of conspiracy by the lemon lobby to get me to remove all the skin on my right hand one recipe at a time via microplane grater. Also it never seems to taste like much, to me.

1 1/2 lb green beans, trimmed and cut diagonally into 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon zest (or a tablespoon of lemon juice)
4 teaspoons olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the beans in a pot of boiling salted water for about five minutes. Drain well. Transfer to a bowl and toss with all the other ingredients. Serve immediately.

1 comment:

Katie said...

I tried a variation of this for dinner, and it came out great. I thought I had pine nuts, but then realized I didn't have enough, so I used walnuts instead. And I pan-fried the beans instead of boiling them since I like them better that way.

The basic recipe was cook cut beans in oil until they look almost done, add in chopped walnuts and cook until the walnuts look like they're about to burn, then eat! I also added a bit of salt and pepper.