I Bean Very Busy

I can't say enough about beans! I love beautiful beans! I love opening the dried cases and popping out the seeds like tiny jewels! Beans sprout quickly (which is probably why all the first-graders do that experiment with the black-paper-in-a-baggie), they leaf out quickly, and they produce with gratifying promptness. Their flowers are humble but interesting: the green beans have a purple flower, the pintos are white, and the Anasazi are peach. I can imagine a small city courtyard with beans vining up a trellis in lush profusion.

In my first post I uploaded a picture of the first row of beans in their little riverside condos. Here's the row a month later (two straggling tomatoes destroy the symmetry in front).








The little bean pods can be harvested green, even if they aren't green beans (I managed to mix up my sprouts and had to wait until I figured out the flower color/dried bean connection). The flatter pods give the impression of snow peas.

They are very good stir fried with a little soy sauce. The boy says, "These are almost bearable!"




I've frozen some (with a quick hot-water blanching; I read about this somewhere). I've also used them for color in a pasta salad.

Recipe: Boil, drain and cool 1/2 lb. of multicolored rotini pasta. Add chopped tomatoes (these were storebought), bean pods, and whatever raw vegetables you think sounds good. Slosh generously with Italian dressing (or whatever comes to hand). Threaten son with prolonged loss of computer privileges if he doesn't try at least one bean.