Blue Cayenne

Cookies. What a beautiful word.

No need to feel guilty about eating them either. ‘Tis the season.

Being a cookie addict aficionado, imagine my delight when the New York Times ran a special cookie feature  this week by cookbook author and food stylist Susan Spungen. I couldn’t wait to begin giving her beautiful recipes a try. The Thumbprint Cookie, in particular, caught my eye. Here is a link to Spungen’s collection of cookie recipes: NY Times Special Cookie Section.  You’ll definitely want to read it.

And here are my Thumbprints.

According to Smithsonian Magazine somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000,000 people will be eating green bean casserole this Thanksgiving, many of them following some version of the recipe Dorcas Reilly (pictured below) created in 1955. Dorcas was a food expert working for Campbell’s Soup Company at the time.

If you want to give it a go, here is her original recipe. The recipe card is now housed in the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Interest in the recipe has exploded over the years, so much so that Campbell’s Soup now estimates that 40% of the cream of mushroom soup they sell goes into green bean casseroles.

If, however, you are weary of Dorcas’ ubiquitous casserole and thinking of going rogue with your holiday menu this year, here is a wonderful option: Green Beans With Walnuts and Dried-Cherry Vinaigrette.

There is no can of cream of mushroom soup in this green bean recipe. No canned fried onions, either. I promise. Cross my heart.

Instead, this holiday green bean dish combines cherries, roasted walnuts and a drop-dead good vinaigrette dressing with fresh tender-crisp French green beans. Sweet. Sour, Crunchy. Beautiful. Fresh. (Good words, all.)

Be sure, though, that you buy fresh French green beans or French green beans that have been quick frozen immediately after being  harvested. It would be a shame to diminish the flavor of this dish by using less-than quality beans. Green beans, after all, are one of the most fragile vegetables out there. Their tissue is very active. A lonely bag of fresh green beans left in the refrigerator too long consumes its own sugars and loses sweetness. How sad is that!

This Green Beans With Walnuts and Dried-Cherry Vinaigrette recipe is adapted from one that was taught in a great “Thanksgiving Sides” class taught by the very talented Chef Brian at the Costa Mesa  (California) Sur La Table. That recipe was originally published in Bon Appetit Magazine here.

I’m imagining myself enjoying a bowl of this wonderful Fasolada soup on a lazy afternoon in a boisterous Greek taverna. Outside, the turquoise waters of the Aegean Sea lap gently against faded fishing boats beached on the sand . Bottles of Fix beer and a carafe (or two) of retsina are lined up on my table. The sublime music of Mikis Theodorakis fills the space. (There is a handsome Greek guy too, but that is another story.)

Fasolada is a traditional Greek dish. In fact, some call it the Greek National Dish. I guess Moussaka and Fasolada will have to fight it out for that title. They’re both Olympian contenders to be sure.

As the story goes, the King of Athens, traveling to Crete to kill the Minotaur, needed a sacrifice to honor the god Apollo. When the time came, the cupboards were pretty bare and bean soup (fasolada) was presented as the offering. Greeks have been celebrating and enjoying the soup ever since.

In addition to being thrifty, this soup is healthy. It is rich in protein, iron and fiber. It also incorporates a good stir of heart-healthy olive oil at the end of cooking to give it its wonderful creamy texture.

Hope you enjoy this soup.

Bon Appetit or, as the Greeks say, Καλή όρεξη!

This recipe is adapted from one that appears in The Milk Street Cookbook. You can buy the book here.