Simple Summer Supper: Beans & Taters

"Purple" green beans.

Beautiful, locally-grown potatoes (aka "taters")

I recently found myself with a wealth of both beans and potatoes and was musing about what to cook for dinner when my 5-year-old suggested combining Green Beans Almondine and pan-fried potatoes. The result played up all the freshness of the food and was healthy and delicious. I've already made it twice this summer! Bonus: it makes a great vegetarian dish.

Sampling is always allowed. You can see the potatoes in the background.

First order of business: clean and snap beans. I just toss them into a sink full of cold water and swish around with my hands, scrubbing any remaining dirt off with my fingers. The kids often will "help" snap as long as they can snack along the way. I am a stickler for removing all strings -- this is why I snap all but the youngest and smallest beans.

Blanching green (or purple) beans is easy. Bring water to boil, add a pinch of salt and cleaned/snapped beans. Cook for 3-5 minutes, then remove to ice water bath. You can see here, about two minutes into cooking, that the purple is disappearing from my beans. C'est la vie. While the beans blanch, I scrub and cut potatoes.

As you can see, the "purple" beans are quite green after cooking; here they are in their ice bath. Once they are cooled, they'll retain their bright green color and you can eat them like this or add to your salad, or stir fry or, of course, with potatoes...which I also blanched (same process, but for about 12-15 minutes, or until fork-tender) before cooking in the skillet.

Toasted almonds, brown and buttery.

While the potatoes blanched, I toasted my almonds in a little Smart Balance (butter or olive oil or toasting dry works just fine as well). I love the nice color and flavor and, especially if the entire meal is vegetarian, I like to add some good fat. (Note: use of Smart Balance actually makes this a vegan meal!) Toast in skillet till brown, then scoop carefully out so the nice browned butter-and-nut flavor is there for your potatoes.

If you don't want to also blanch the potatoes, you could roast them or pan-saute them; it is up to you. I like blanching because then finishing them in the "almond butter" makes for a lovely flavor. At any rate, add the potatoes to the pan along with a little olive oil and chopped garlic and brown to your liking (or just till they crisp up here and there, as was my choice this day). Then add the beans and season to taste with salt and pepper. Last of all, top with the crispy toasted almonds. I think some lemon or orange zest would be a lovely addition to this dish, if you are so inclined.

Here is my 5-year-old's portion of our simple "Beans and Taters" supper, served with some corn on the cob and leftover mixed veggies. Notice there is no meat on the plate! This vegetarian meal provides all of the protein, nutrients and amino acids necessary for good health. My husband works a physically-demanding job and found this meal satisfying and tasty (he takes it for his 2 a.m. "lunch") and asked for a repeat performance, only with more-browned potatoes.

Full-on American Food

When I was a kid, I heard someone explain how a hot dog was the perfect illustration of a quintessentially American food. You've got a sausage from Vienna, bread from the Midwest and condiments from across the globe. I liked the idea of food illustrating our melting pot, but really can't we offer up something better than a hot dog? If you say McDonalds I am now plugging my ears and running away screaming. I find it sad that most of the rest of the world thinks golden arches and Coca-Cola when they think of "American Food."

What is Real American Food? It's basically "peasant food." Real American Food is simple, fresh and easy to prepare. The thing that makes Real American Food unique is the surprising blend of flavors from around the globe.  I've worked in restaurants with some truly talented chefs. I've watched amazing chefs on television. They all say the same thing: get the freshest ingredients you can and cook it simply and you'll always have amazing food. I think it finally sank in when I started cooking with Alice Waters' The Art of Simple Food.

Tonight's dinner is Real American Food: Pork Chops with russet and sweet potatoes and Swiss chard. The pork, sweet potatoes and chard are all from a local farm with Avalon Acres. The russets came from Costco. Easy, breezy, simple meal.

Pork Chops with Potatoes and Greens
Season pork as early in the day as you can, but at least 30 minutes prior to cooking. I made up a rub with sea salt, pepper, chipotle powder, garlic powder, onion powder and a bit of brown sugar. You can season it the night before or in the morning and pull out of the fridge while you prep/cook other things. It needs some time to come to room temperature to cook evenly.

Slice potatoes and season lightly with salt and pepper. Brown in about 1/2 TBSP olive oil in skillet (they will not be fully cooked). Add chopped or sliced onions and garlic if you like. Remove from pan and add a bit of vegetable oil or bacon grease (just about a scant teaspoon or so). Brown pork chops on both sides. Add a cup or so of chicken or vegetable stock and scrape up the browned bits. Add back in the potatoes, cover and lower heat. Allow to simmer for about a half hour until the pork is cooked through and the potatoes are tender. Wash and roughly chop greens and add to pot; cook until tender (mine took about 5 more minutes).

I served this with homemade bread and some brown basmati rice since my children are hit-or-miss with eating potatoes. It's not fancy, but it sure is tasty.