Pepper Slaw with Beans

This is another nice way to use up odds and ends in the vegetable bin. You can adjust the proportions, and ingredients to reflect what you have, keeping the basic idea.

!/2 head red cabbage, finely sliced
2 green bell peppers, finely sliced
2 red bell peppers, finely sliced
1 tin sweet corn, rinsed and drained
1 tin chick peas/garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 tin dark kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 large onion, halved and finely sliced

Dressing:
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar
4 cups cider vinegar
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon ground allspice
Salt/Pepper to taste

Mix well, and serve chilled.

Sort-Of a Three Bean Salad

Half-eaten salad. My son grudgingly stopped eating for 30 seconds so I could snap a photograph. He glared at me like it was child abuse or something.



Danny loved this, and he's not the sort of person to carry on about a salad. I made some major changes to the original recipe, but I liked the idea of using both garbanzo and kidney beans. I had fresh green beans, so I steamed them lightly and tossed them in. The addition of tinned corn wasn't something I would have thought of, though I suspect I'll never be permitted to serve a three bean salad without it again.

I always have difficulty dissolving granulated sugar in oil and vinegar for salad dressings. I'm sure it is just laziness on my part, but I usually resort to using either honey, golden syrup or Cane syrup instead. This time, I used two tablespoons of Steens boiled cane syrup and I suspect that was what took this rather ordinary bean salad into the top tier of my seven year old son's "Best ever" dishes. He insisted I blog it, lest I forget what I did different from the recipe. I do think you can manage with sugar, or honey, or what have you, but a bottle of Steen's in nice to pour over French toast (and no, they aren't compensating me to say that, I just like and use the product).

1 tin kidney beans
1 tin garbanzo beans (chick peas)
1/2 lb. green beans, lightly steamed and refreshed under cold water
1/2 cup diced green pepper
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
1/2 cup corn oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons boiled cane syrup or 1/2 cup sugar
Dash lemon juice
Black pepper and salt to taste (I didn't add any salt as the tinned items already had plenty)

This salad improves after a day, though it is pretty fantastic on the first.

Three Bean Salad

I used both the purple bush beans and the young Borlotto pods growing in the garden. The kidney beans were purchased, but it does have me thinking of growing them next year.

This salad is best a day after you make it. Feel free to substitute the standard green bean/wax bean combination-or go wild and add chick peas, favas, or whatever. As my beans were fresh, I steamed them lightly before making the salad. You could just as easily open a tin.

You Will Need:

2 cups cooked beans (I used a combination of Borlotto and purple bush beans)
1 tin red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/8 cup corn oil
4 tablespoons sugar
Salt/Pepper
1 small red onion, chopped
2 small bay leaves

Combine, cover and keep chilled a day before serving. Makes about 1 quart.