Warm Green Bean Salad

This salad was created by Becca von Trapp, who has written for this newsletter in the past and who cares for many of Full Belly’s animals. This recipe uses the 1/2-pound of green beans that you are getting in your box, but a larger quantity will work as well — just increase the amounts of other ingredients.  The recipe uses Ponzu, a staple in Becca's kitchen.  Ponzu is a sauce made with mirin, rice vinegar, and seaweed available in most stores.  Becca made this salad with cherry tomatoes, and recommends putting some sort of tomato into the salad.  She included the corn because there is corn in the boxes this week, but it is optional.  The salad is served warm.  

1/2-pound Full Belly green beans
2 ears of sweet corn (optional)
1-cup cherry tomatoes (halved) or other diced tomatoes if available
1/3-pound of almonds
ponzu
Safflower or olive other oil - 2 tablespoons
2-3 tablespoons of chopped chives (optional)

If you are using sweet corn, cut the corn off the ear, and blanch it for 1 or 2 minutes.  Blanch the green beans as well — just 3 or 4 minutes — so that they are still pretty firm.  Drain the vegetables and put them in a bowl.

Pulverize the almonds in a blender or Vitamix until you have a mix of powder and chunks.  Mix several tablespoons of the ponzu with the oil in a separate bowl.

Combine all of the vegetables with the almonds and toss in the ponzu/olive oil dressing.  Taste it and add more ponzu if needed.  Garnish with the chives.