People can be fools whether it's April or not, so I bought a big can of green beans. This was months ago, before extra food came into style.
It was a silly choice at the time, as I crouched beside the grocer's bottom shelf, weighing pros and cons.
Pro: It was a 6 3/16-inch-wide, 7-inch-tall, rust-resistant steel cylinder.
Con: It came with 6 pounds, 6 ounces of green beans.
But I could use that steel cylinder. "Waste not your whatnots," as Mountain View potter David Dahlsted says. In a workshop at the Arkansas Arts Center Museum School some years ago, he used sturdy clay cutters he'd fashioned out of vegetable and fruit cans using a smooth edge can opener, "as seen on TV." A thrifty potter could buy canned food in different quantities to collect a cheap set of nesting circle cutters. I lacked a 6-inch circle.
Sold. Home I went with my No. 10 clay cutter. And 24 servings of beans.
I don't usually eat canned green beans. So, I asked the best cook I know how she would use them.
"If you have a dog, especially a fat dog, give them to your dog," she said. "Dogs love green beans."
I have cats. After draining and rinsing the beans, I gave each cat one. Ollie Cat batted his right under the sofa; Opie tried to dig a hole in the floor. Undeterred, I ate a bean.
Although the Nutrition Facts label states there are 290 mg of sodium in each half-cup serving, that bean was bland. It also was cooked just to the edge of disintegration. Not ideal for crudites.
No offense to anyone who loves canned green beans, but ... why? Another friend had a one-word suggestion: bacon. Actually, several people suggested bacon. My sister-in-law M.B. Partlow, the food critic, said, "Saute them with oil, onions, tomatoes and little garlic." Would she write that up as a recipe, please, with proportions for one or two servings? "No," she said. "I don't measure anything."
Fortunately, humanity has dealt before with gluts of green vegetables, and we have a strategy for dealing with bland abundance. I refer, of course, to zucchini bread. Also, soups, hummus and smoothies don't mind random ingredients.
One solution might have been to puree the whole mess and call it soup. But we can do better.
What does zucchini have that canned green beans also have? "Flavorless moisture" is cookbook author and blogger Sally McKenney's description of zucchini. "Zucchini bread tastes like whatever spices you put into it," she explains at Sally's Baking Addiction.
Turns out, canned and not especially salty green beans also take on the flavor of whichever spices predominate in a dish, savory or sweet. Consider using them in any baked goods where you might use zucchini, and won't be sickened by a slightly green tint.
This adaptation of McKenney's Best Zucchini Bread rose to a nobly cracked yet moist and fragrant loaf with a chewy crust — despite my subbing the squash with pureed beans, as well as other substitutions made because I didn't have eggs and my bottle of canola oil was rancid.
I used a powdered egg substitute, Neat Egg, which is ground chia seeds and garbanzo beans. But a large egg would work.
Once the bread cools to room temperature, it slices without crumbles. It keeps in the fridge about a week and — like zucchini bread — you can freeze it.
Green Bean Nut Bread
Butter or shortening to grease loaf pan
2 cups canned green beans, drained and rinsed, twigs removed
½ cup vegetable oil (I used extra virgin olive)
½ cup packed light or dark brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 Neat Egg, made following package directions OR 1 large egg at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 cup chopped nuts, optional
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-5-inch or 8-by-4-inch loaf pan.
Puree green beans in a food processor or blender to make one cup. Scrape into a medium-size bowl and stir in the oil, sugars, egg and vanilla.
In a larger bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Stir in the nuts, if using.
Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Do not blend.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan, mounding slightly in the middle, and set on oven's center rack. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a bamboo skewer or cake tester comes out mostly clean. Allow to cool on a wire rack before removing from pan. Cool to room temperature before slicing — seriously, show some restraint or it will crumble.
Cover and store at room temperature for 3 or 4 days, or up to one week in the refrigerator.
Makes 1 loaf.
Recipe adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction
Here's a vitamin-packed smoothie. Adding canned beans takes it a step down in the world, but we have to use up these darn beans. Helpfully, the fresher veggies hold up their end. As with all of smoothie-kind, the ingredients list is suggestion, not prescription. Swap out anything you don't care for. If you aren't focused on limiting salt, using 2 cups of spicy cocktail juice or Spicy Hot V8 and skipping everything except the green beans would be almost as tasty.
Green Bean Smoothie
1 cup no-salt-added tomato juice
1 cup ice cubes
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
½ teaspoon prepared horseradish
Juice from ½ lemon plus some of the zest
1 rib celery, washed
1 carrot, scraped
½ red or yellow bell pepper
1 whole green onion, minus grubby little roots
1/5 raw beet (optional)
1/5 jalapeno (optional)
¼ inch fresh turmeric root OR 1 inch fresh ginger root, skin scraped away
1 cup drained and rinsed green beans, twigs removed
1 stem parsley
1 cup fresh kale or spinach
Combine all ingredients in a blender, blending between additions.
Makes 1 generous serving.
Recipe adapted from The How Not to Die Cookbook by Michael Greger and Gene Stone
Lumpen Hummus
1 ½ tablespoons tahini
Juice of ½ lemon
1 (16-ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups canned green beans, drained and rinsed, twigs removed
¼ cup olive oil, give or take
1 clove fresh garlic, riced or minced, optional
Salt to taste
Ground red pepper (cayenne), to taste
Whisk tahini and lemon juice together until smooth and scrape into a blender or food processor. Add garbanzos and process until no longer so chunky. Add other ingredients one at a time, blending each time with "smoother" as your goal. Add enough olive oil and/or water to help along the progress toward smoothness.
Serve with sliced fresh vegetables or unsalted blue-corn corn chips.
Makes about 3 cups.
Raisins would be good in these cookies, but I had no raisins, so ... nuts. I used both ginger root and powdered ginger, but either one alone would add that gingery note. If you don't have orange extract, drink orange juice while you eat the cookie.
Faintly Green Cookies
2 cups green beans, rinsed and drained, twigs removed
½ cup solid coconut oil
1 cup sugar, plus more for flattening cookies
½ teaspoon orange extract
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root
½ teaspoon ground ginger (optional)
1 teaspoon grated orange zest (optional)
1 egg (I used one Neat Egg, following directions on package)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup raisins OR chopped nuts
In blender or food processor, puree green beans.
Cream coconut oil and sugar together before blending in bean puree. The batter will look uncombined; this is OK. Add orange and ginger seasonings. Beat in the egg.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Make a well in the flour and pour in the green batter. Stir well or beat on "low" to combine. Stir in raisins (or nuts). Cover and chill at least 15 minutes.
Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookie sheets. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheet about one inch apart and flatten with the bottom of a wet glass dipped in sugar.
Bake for 10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool slightly on the sheets before removing to wire racks.
Makes at least 3 dozen.
Most recipes call for pressing a block of firm tofu to remove moisture before you do anything else to it, to avoid dangerous splatters in frying. But you can slice it and press the slices individually much faster. A gentle squeeze between your hands for 30 seconds or so does a good job.
Planks o' Tofu Sandwich for One
1 block firm or extra-firm tofu, drained
Olive oil (for the pan)
½ cup canned green beans, drained, rinsed, twigs removed
¼ cup soy-free Vegenaise (mayonnaise works too)
1 teaspoon Norita Sriracha Miso Sauce OR any ketchup replacement you like
2 slices frozen sprouted grain bread, thawed
¼ carrot, shredded
Drain tofu. Pat dry with clean kitchen towel. Slice the tofu into ½-inch-thick planks. Select the 2 prettiest, wrap up the rest and store in the refrigerator for another use. Working over the sink, hold one plank of tofu between your hands in prayer position, but with fingers aiming down into the sink. Press gently for 30 seconds while it drips. Blot the planks dry. Set the tofu aside. Throw towel in laundry.
Spray oil in a saute pan OR pour in ½ teaspoon of oil and smear it around. Heat pan until oil is hot. Carefully place the tofu in the pan and cook on medium high, turning frequently to dislodge sticking, until both sides of the planks brown — about 3 minutes per side. Completists can brown the narrow sides as well, 15 seconds per side. Turn off heat, remove tofu and set aside. Don't clean the pan yet.
Coarsely chop the green beans. Give the pan another light spritz of oil if needed, add the beans, return pan to heat and cook 30 seconds, just until warm, stirring to pick up any crispy bits of tofu. Remove pan from heat.
Toast the bread. While it toasts, combine Sriracha Miso Sauce and Vegenaise in a small bowl.
"Butter" 2 slices of toast with the Vegenaise blend. Place tofu planks side by side on one slice of toast, dump the beans over them, sprinkle on the carrots. Spoon on more Vegenaise blend until you start to feel guilty; refrigerate the remainder for another use. Top sandwich with the other slice of toast.
Hold your sandwich with two hands and squeeze it a bit while you bite.
If you prefer another sort of bread, suit yourself because I'm not coming over to your house for lunch.
Makes 1 sandwich.
Food on 04/01/2020