green beans with olive oil (fasolakia me lathi)

last winter i prepared 3 new vegetable garden beds in the southerly aspect of my garden because i'd had several disappointing summer crops from my very exposed north facing garden..one of the beds required some initial assistance in the form of jack hammers and man power but the other two i readied myself..seventeen hours of hard graft was devoted to the second of the beds which produced 5 large bags of kikuyu (an invasive lawn) and several buckets of archaelogical artifacts in the form of broken tiles and bricks, skeletal remains, broken jewellery and bits of unidentifiable plastic..the last of the plots was the easiest of the three to prepare because i'd layered newspaper and mulch on the grass several months earlier which made the digging easier..

i've planted 3 types of beans, climbing beans, bush beans and borlotti beans, in my new vegetable garden and for the first time i've made sure to plant successive crops to prolong production....since just after christmas i've been harvesting a few of the climbing beans each day but during the last week production has increased dramatically and i've been picking about 250 gms to 500 gms a day..

many of the dishes i learned to make while living in greece rarely feature on menus in greek restaurants here in australia..one of these, green beans in olive oil or fasolakia me lathi, is a favourite of my children and mine..sometimes other ingredients are added such as meat or potatoes which is how i made the recipe today..

green beans with olive oil (fasolakia me lathi)

ingredients

2 tablespoons (tbs) olive oil

1 large onion sliced thin

2 garlic* cloves cut fine

500 gms skinned tomatoes** chopped

10 small potatoes* (optional)

1200 gms green beans*

1/2 teaspoon (tsp) chilli flakes*

3 tbs parsley* cut fine

1 tsp sugar

salt and pepper

method

~ remove the ends of the beans and leave whole or cut to preferred size

~ heat oil in a large saucepan and add onion and garlic and cook until soft

~ add potatoes, beans, tomato, chilli, pepper and sugar and cover and cook over a moderate heat until the beans and potato are tender

~ add salt to taste and stir well

~ serve hot or cold with a drizzle of extra olive oil and parsley sprinkled over

notes

*   home grown produce

** i used 700 mls home bottled tomato puree