Beans with citrus and chives

It's fun getting reacquainted with my cookbook collection as I look for new and interesting ways to prepare the many vegetables I buy each week. I came across this recipe in Super Natural Cooking, a book by Heidi Swanson, who also writes the blog 101 Cookbooks. Heidi focuses on cooking with natural, whole foods, and her recipes are always creative and inspiring. This one ended up being a nice, quick way to cook the three (three!) different colors of string beans that I had bought at the market. The beans are sliced into tiny rings and subtly flavored with lemon, lime, and chives. It's simple, bright, and tasty - Andrew even declared this to be his new favorite bean preparation!

If you've got the patience, you could certainly cut the beans with a knife, but I used my food processor. I used green, yellow, and purple string beans here - sadly, the purple ones turned green after they were cooked (I guess I should probably stop buying vegetables just because they're purple...)



Beans with citrus and chives
Adapted from Super Natural Cooking
Serves 4

3/4 pound string beans, trimmed
2 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
2 tbs water
Grated zest from 1 lemon
Grated zest from 1 lime
3-4 tbs chopped fresh chives
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cut the beans into approximately 1/8-inch slices. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, and add the beans. Stir to coat beans with oil and then add water and cover the skillet. Cook for 2-3 minutes, tossing once or twice, until the beans are bright and tender. Remove skillet from heat and stir in zests and chives. Season to taste with salt and pepper.