17 July 2020

Beans and bread


American friends of ours, K & J — they live just five miles upriver, on the other side of St-Aignan from where we live — have a fantastic vegetable garden. It's not only well laid out and tended to, but it's very productive. They have a lot of green beans right now, and they brought us a few pounds of haricots verts this week. I cooked them in a steamer pot and froze more than half of them. I made the ones we ate fresh into haricots verts à l'italienne (recipe), one of my favorite green bean recipes. It's green beans cooked in tomato sauce flavored with onion, garlic, herbs, and olive oil.

There's a good recipe for beans prepared and served this way in The Classic Italian Cookbook (p. 362) by Marcella Hazan.
I normally use this French recipe and it's good with any type of green beans.



I also made another loaf of sandwich bread yesterday. The dough had been in the freezer for a few weeks. It rose beautifully, doubling in volume and becoming foamy and light. I baked it in the Pullman pan I bought a while back. It's a metal loaf pan with a slide-on lid and a non-stick (anti-adhésif) coating on the inside.








Today we'll make croque-monsieur sandwiches (link) with a few slices of this bread. Those are toasted ham and cheese sandwiches that you eat with a knife and fork, and they are staple of French café food.

10 comments:

  1. Good looking beans and bread. I’ll have to try your bean recipe, they look delicious.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Those Italian-style beans are very good for beans that need longer cooking to get tender. The beans in tomato sauce or made with fresh tomatoes would be a good pasta sauce as well.

      Delete
  2. I'm wondering if what you call Italian style beans hsve anything in common with what we call in French haricots beurre, haricots mangetout, haricots filets as mentioned in Wikipdedia ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haricots verts à l'italienne are green beans cooked with tomatoes or tomato sauce. Onions, garlic, bell peppers, herbs, and even lardons fumés are good additions. I call them Italian-style green beans. They're delicious.

      Delete
  3. I've never had green beans cooked like that. I have that cookbook and will find the recipe. It's going to be 96 degrees here today, ouf!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Stewed tomatoes with fresh green beans. It's fittin'.

      Delete
  4. It all looks great. How nice of your neighbors to share their bounty.

    ReplyDelete

What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?