[vheogl]

The runner beans have gone crazy and seem to be growing quicker than the population of china. Which means we seem to be stuck with rather a lot of them. (2 huge boxes full to be exact) So what can i do with them? The only way i know how to cook them is to just steam them and eat them like that. But seeing as i am not the biggest runner bean fan and i have so many of them i need some new creative tasty ideas. so anyone got any?

 

[karenlovessnow]

You can blanch them and freeze some. If they are young and tender you can eat them raw in a salad. Or steam them, let them cool and make a bean salad. Or stew them with tomatoes....yum.

 

[Ayrlin]

Freeze or can them and eat them all year.

You are lucky when I try and grow runner beans down here they die in late may when it gets to hot and dry!

But just so you know runner beans are great in stews, pot pies, mixed veggies, with rice in many many dishes they can be added.

I have even been known to dip them in batter and deep fry them yummmmmyyy

 

[Tesseract]

Stir-fry them!

Stir-fried green beans are awesome. OK, so that recipe makes a monstrous amount, but it has a great photo. If you don't want to bother scaling it down, here's a different recipe with more reasonable proportions. But I just realized allrecipes has a really cool scaling feature so you can change the proportions on that huge recipe with no problem.

 

[Snow White]

Curry! I'm afraid I don't have the complete recipe, but I did write down how to make the curry powder:

Preheat your oven to 65°C/ 10°F. Put

2 tbsp coriander (seed),

1/2 tsp brown mustard seed (use yellow if you can't find brown),

1 1/2 tbsp raw rice,

three sprigs of fresh curry leaves (or a small handful of dried ones),

1tbsp fennel seed,

1 tbsp fenugreek seed,

1 tbsp dessicated coconut,

1 1/2 tbsp cumin in the oven,

remove after one hour, leave to cool and grind. You'll end up with about half a cup of curry powder.

As for the rest, I'll just have to blag it and say heat oil med-high, sauté onion, garlic ginger and chillies until the onions soften. Stir in some of the curry powder, beans (cut into pieces diagonally), finely cubed potatoes, add coconut milk and salt, cover, bring to boil, turn heat down a little, cover and simmer until your veggies are done.

And if that's too complicated, there's always green bean salad.

500g/1lb green beans

1 bunch of spring onions

1 bunch of fresh mint (Fresh and dried mint aren't really interchangeable, but you can freeze it and take it out as needed)

2 tomatoes

2 garlic cloves

4 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp paprika

black pepper

4 tbsp olive oil

Trim the beans, add to a pot of boiling salted water, put the lid on, cook until they're done (about 10 mins) and rinse in cold water. While you're waiting, remove any wilted bits from the onions and cut them. Wash the mint and shred the leaves. Chop the garlic and tomatoes (removing the hard bits). Mix the lemon juice, paprika, salt and pepper and whisk the olive oil in a little at a time with a fork. Then mix everything together and eat.

In addition, I threw in some sweet corn, black olives, bits of old baguette soaked in olive oil and raspberry vinegar, since I had those floating around, waiting to be used up.

Or just sauté some onion and garlic, and cook your beans with some finely chopped tomatoes.