Updating a couple of old favorite side dishes

 

Not my image
No chickpeas in my bean salad
I'm not particularly taken with chickpeas

Everyone has dishes they do they way they’ve been doing them for years, right? I mean it’s always been good enough. Except in prowling the net for recipes, which I do a lot, I found two updates that I’m loving.

For years my family has loved a salad we called marinated vegetables. Can’t even remember where I got the idea, but I would dump vegetables into a Dutch oven (not because I was going to cook but because it was the right size)—cut canned green beans, artichoke heart quarters, sliced sweet or red onion, drained and rinsed pinto or kidney beans, broccoli and cauliflower flowerets (some it was good to parboil or steam them just a bit). You could add sliced bell peppers—I just happen to really not like them. Originally I remember directions called for head lettuce and avocado but those don’t hold up well after the first serving. To dress it? Just bathe with your favorite bottled dressing, usually some version of Italian. In recent years, we’ve preferred Paul Newman’s Own Oil and Vinegar. This is great for feeding a crowd.

But sometimes you don’t want that huge salad that lasts a week in the fridge. And three-bean salad is perfect for family meals. If I knew how to do that marinated vegetable salad, surely I knew how to make three-bean salad. Same method, fewer ingredients. Once or twice I tried canned or deli-prepared bean salad, but it was always too sweet for me. Then I discovered this recipe.

Three bean salad

16 oz. canned, cut beans (if you can find yellow or wax beans, use an 8 oz. can of those and an 8 oz. can green; I’ve had trouble finding the wax beans, and an all-green salad is just fine)

1 15-oz. can red beans, drained and rinsed (I prefer the small red to the larger kidney beans)

1 small, red or sweet onion, thinly sliced

For the dressing:

¼ cup cider vinegar

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp. honey

1 garlic clove, pressed or micro planed

Pepper to taste

Since I disliked the sweet bean salads I’ve tasted, I had real reservations about that tablespoon of honey, but it somehow accentuates the flavor and yet you don’t actually taste honey.

Serve chilled; keeps well in the refrigerator.

British methods of baking potatoes

Another thing everybody knows to how to do is bake potatoes, though there’s always the controversy about wrapping them in foil or oiling them or just sticking them in the oven at 350 for an hour and testing to be sure they’re soft inside. It only takes one potato exploding in the oven to teach a new cook to poke holes in the skin before baking.

I’ve been baking potatoes for decades, obviously, and saw no need to change my ways—until I read about the British method. Scrub potatoes thoroughly but instead of poking holes, cut a good-sized cross in the top of each. Bake at 400^o for two hours—that’s right, two hours! My toaster oven seems to run a little hot, so I did them at 375.

Remove from oven and as soon as you can handle them, with an oven mitt, cut each potato open lengthwise. Use a fork to get inside and fluff the meat. This is a bit difficult because you’re dodging a hot potato, but it’s worth it. Then put the potatoes back in that hot oven for another ten minutes. Makes the fluffiest potatoes ever with skin so crisp you’ll eat every bite.

And a word about oven roasted potatoes

Maybe it was the long cooking of the British method, but I’ve been inspired to cook potatoes a bit longer lately. The other night I roasted a pork tenderloin in the oven—it only takes 30 minutes, so if I wanted to scatter potatoes around it, I’d have o cut them fairly small to ensure they cooked through. I cut small red potatoes into fourths—pieces not much bigger than your thumbnail. Tossed them with generous salt and pepper and some olive oil and scattered them around the pork. Once again, crisp, salty skins and really soft insides. Jordan said I wasn’t cooking enough, and I said, “Oh, nobody eats that much potato.” I was so wrong. Wished I’d cooked more.