I stumbled upon the most wonderful little discovery the other day. Well, I thought it was wonderful, but I’m not sure anyone else would be as easily impressed.
It’s March, which theoretically means spring is nigh – although the fact that there is still some pretty serious snow on the ground with more quickly piling up as I type this means we cannot shake the feeling of being trapped in a snow globe someone keeps shaking and then putting back in their freezer. Although there was this hopeful sight last week when I set foot into the back yard:
Not that we can see that now. It isn’t that we’ve had a long winter here in Virginia, it’s that we had a long February which has bled into March, with this being our fifth or sixth snow day in less than three weeks. At any rate, it’s the time of year where soup for dinner almost every night is getting old. After all, soup has what’s been for dinner almost every night since about October. We’re all ready for a change in weather, precipitation and what’s for dinner.
So when making a pot of soup recently, I noticed the green beans I had pulled from the freezer maintained a certain crispness. I quickly got inspired to try some of the beans in the freezer (twice last summer I was handed an abundance of green beans and I’ve not really begun to scratch the green bean stash) in one of my favorite summer time recipes that calls for fresh, crisp beans: Mollie Katzen’s Green Beans and Tofu with Crunchy Thai Peanut Sauce. (The recipe is from her Vegetable Heaven cookbook, which is another must-have cookbook).
I oh, so happily discovered the frozen beans did quite well – in fact, because they had a little more liquid thanks to my not entirely defrosting them before throwing them in the pan (which also caused me to adjust my cooking time somewhat), the dish had a little more liquid than usual, making it lovely as leftovers for lunch. Although the addendum sauce at the bottom of the link to the recipe looks promising – I shall try that next time.
And that friends and readers, is what’s new around here. Working through that stash of green beans just got a little more inspired, which is good because I just realized exactly how many bags of beans I have on hand.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 
The snow pics are so pretty. I can’t believe it snowed AGAIN today…messing up my weekend plans, ugh!
Fingers crossed our plans are totally scrapped.
Num!
It is time for some crunch. I’m in asparagus mood. C’mon, spring!
Though it does look pretty in your neck of the woods–that fresh layer of white fluff.
So pretty, but this round is heavy with a layer of ice under it.
Snow atop the fish just doesn’t seem right! 😉 The lower right photo in that group reminds me of those lacy cookies with powdered sugar. Your green beans look good!
That’s exactly why I snapped that shot – it looked like those cookies!
I have some whole tomatoes in my freezer from last summer. You told me how to use them at some point, but I’ve forgotten. Something like running them under hot water to skin them? Can you remind me? 🙂
Yes, exactly! Run them through some hot water and the skins should pop off. Then you can use them like you would canned.
Beautiful pictures! Mollie Katzen is one of my favorite cookbook authors. We ate at the Moosewood Cafe in Ithaca once, but I think at some point it morphed into a tourist trap.
I’m sure it has. I’ve been given a few of the Moosewood cookbooks over the years, but the only one I’ve hung onto is the original one she wrote. Mollie Katzen is easily one of my favorite cookbook authors as well.