Month: July 2025

Elegant and Intense: Plum Ice Cream

Elegant and Intense: Plum Ice Cream

I’m a unashamed stone fruit devotee. I particularly love plums. This is my season! There were perfectly ripe plums at my local farmers’ market this week. So, it being summer, I decided to make ice cream. This is a David Lebovitz recipe from his cookbook…

Oldies But Goodies: Plum Conserve

Oldies But Goodies: Plum Conserve

Every month Blue Cayenne features recipes from our archive of more than four hundred recipes. These recipes are our “Oldies But Goodies.” Today’s Oldie But Goodie recipe is for Plum Conserve–perfect for slathering on your morning toast or for incorporating into your pastry recipes. (Here…

Good Memories: Bean Salad

Good Memories: Bean Salad

This recipe brings back fond memories of parties in my home. On my buffet table, a three bean salad was always a reliable dish–easy to put together, flexible, and interesting.

Recently, my local Farmer’s Market has been offering beautiful yellow was beans that reminded me of that long-ago canned bean dish. And, my good friend and neighbor Sarah has shared some fresh green beans with me from her garden. So, I revisited the Good Housekeeping Cookbook recipe .

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. The amounts are approximate. This is one of those recipes where you use what you have in your pantry. This recipe is inspired by one that appears in my first cookbook, the 1963 edition of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook, and the Three Bean Salad With Coriander Viniagrette recipe that appears in The Williams Sonoma Salad of the Day Cookbook. Both books are available through used book stores. 

Here is the recipe as I made it in my kitchen. 

Bean Salad

July 23, 2025
Ingredients
  • For The Salad:
  • 1/2 lb. fresh green beans
  • 1/2 lb. fresh wax beans
  • 1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans (drained and rinsed)
  • 1 15-ounce can red kidney beans (drained and rinsed)
  • 1 C. defrosted edamame
  • 1 fresh green pepper (chopped fine)
  • For The Dressing:
  • 1 t. ground coriander
  • 1/4 C. fresh lemon juice
  • 2 T. white wine vinegar (or more to your taste)
  • 2 shallots (chopped fine)
  • 3/4 C. avocado oil
  • Sugar (to your taste)
  • 1 t. grated lemon zest
  • A garnish of fresh dill
Directions
  • Step 1 Prepare the dressing. Mix all ingredients together.
  • Step 2 Clean and trim the fresh beans. Briefly steam them. Cool. Add the fresh beans to the canned beans, chopped green pepper. Pour the dressing over the beans and allow them to marinate for a few hours or overnight. Enjoy.
Watermelon-Tomato Gazpacho

Watermelon-Tomato Gazpacho

It is the height of the tomato season and what a season it is! My farmer’s market has a great selection of heirloom varieties and I’ve been delving into some of the interesting versions of Gazpacho. (We’ve featured Gazpacho before on Blue Cayenne– here and here…

Creamy Sesame-Ginger Salad Dressing

Creamy Sesame-Ginger Salad Dressing

This is one wonderful salad dressing. A real keeper. This Creamy Sesame-Ginger Dressing is a Samin Nosrat recipe from The New York Times. You can find the original recipe here. Nosrat is the gifted author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, an exceptional cookbook that should…