Pickled Beans

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of visiting one of my best girlfriends at the organic vegetable farm she shares with her husband up near Thornbury. It was a great window into the workings of a farm and what day-to-day life at the height of market season is really like.

Naturally, I pitched in and got my hands dirty, as any decent visitor would do. And indeed, from early morning to dusk, there was no shortage of jobs to be done. I was Laura’s sidekick, busying myself by helping with her usual duties.

Upon my arrival, we started by prepping an enormous lunch for the rest of the crew (her husband Ryan, his right hand man and their crew of teenaged volunteers – and ourselves, too) – spicy red lentil dahl, brown rice, greens with maple vinaigrette and steamed rainbow chard. Not exactly a light lunch, but the midday meal on a farm is often the biggest of the day, and rightly so.

We chatted up customers while doing farm gate sales (with the regulars commenting on Laura’s burgeoning belly – she’s expecting her first baby this winter). We sorted through a bin that held the last of the farm’s peas and picked out the nicest looking ones for a chef who wanted “all you’ve got.” We then had some quality quiet time to catch-up on the porch while we shelled all the nattier looking peas for ourselves – which were, of course, equally delicious, if not as pretty as the chef’s on the outside.

We filled and dropped off vegetable orders at two local restaurants, listening sympathetically to one discouraged chef as he admitted that although he adores the farm’s purple heirloom carrots, he’d had a couple of complaints from customers who thought they were rotten because they weren’t orange. We also picked herbs, answered the endlessly ringing phone, swatted flies, made granola and ate divinely yummy cheese and tomato sandwiches (fresh from the vine) for dinner. Not surprisingly, we were in bed by 10 p.m.

A good part of one day was also spent pickling, a bit of an exploratory activity for both of us because although Laura is a farm girl now, our childhood and teenage years were spent together in Golden Horseshoe suburbia, where pickles tend to come from the supermarket. Given that Laura and Ryan were drowning in green beans, we opted to pickle those – with visions of garnishing many a Caesar with them in the months ahead.

We consulted a couple of cookbooks and liked this recipe best, which comes from Simply In Season by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-Wert – an indispensable book for those who like cooking and eating when food is fresh from the fields and gardens. This recipe makes 10 to 12 pints but Laura and I opted to do six quarts instead.

Pickled Green Beans

5 to 6 lbs (2.5 to 3 kgs) green beans (the bigger and straighter, the better)
chili flakes
10 to 12 cloves garlic
10 to 12 dill heads

8 cups water
5 cups apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup pickling salt

Put one large garlic clove, a pinch of chili flakes and one dill head in each pint jar. Fill with straight beans, packing them in as tightly as possible. Make sure the length of the beans is about one centimeter from the top of the jar.

Bring water, vinegar and salt to a boil. Fill jars with brine to one centimeter of top. Place hot lids on jars and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes. (Consult a book or look online for safe canning basics if you’re not sure).

Let stand for two to four weeks before eating.
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