My Mother’s Notebook #2 Green Bean Salad and Grilled Potatoes

It’s Father’s Day and we’re barbequing up a storm.  The next recipe in the notebook appears to be from a weekend color magazine and is actually two; one for Green Bean Salad and the other, Grilled Potatoes.

Back to the German thing.   I don’t think I had a single dinner growing up where there wasn’t some form of potatoes involved.  And green beans were big in my house, though they were usually frozen or (eek!) canned.  So their appearance here in the notebook is no surprise.

Green Bean Salad

Makes 6 servings

1lb of green beans

1/4 cup of chopped pimentos

1/4 cup of chopped scallions

2 TBS of olive oil

2 1/2 TB red wine vineager

1/4 tsp dillweed (or 1/2 fresh)

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/8 tsp celery seed

In a medium saucepan, bring 1″ of water to a boil. Add beans and cover, cooking until crisp tender.  Drain and rinse with cold water.

In a large bowl, combine beans, pimento and scallions.  Put aside.

In a medium container, combine remaining ingredients.  Pour dressing over vegetables and mix well.  Pack in plastic container,  cover and put in refrigerator.   Toss gently before serving.

Grilled Potatoes

2lbs of potatoes

1/4 cup of butter, melted divided

3 TB bread crumbs

1/4 tsp of dried oregano

1/4 tsp of dried basil

1/4 tsp of salt

1/8 tsp pepper

2TBs of grated Parmesan cheese divided.

1 TBS chopped parsley

Serves 6

Cook potatoes in boiling water until done.  Drain and cool completely

Brush a 9″ cake pan with some of the melted butter

In a small pan combine bread crumbs, oregano , basil, sale and pepper.  Cut (and peel if you want) the potatoes into 1″ cubes.  Place potatoes in pan .  Pour about 2/3 of the remaining butter evenly over potatoes.  Sprinkle with bread crumb mixture.  Sprinkle remaining butter on top and sprinkle with parsley.

Cook on a grill about 4″ from heat or under the broiler in the oven for about 12 minutes.  Serve

 

REVIEWS:

The green bean salad brought back tons of memories of summer dinners for both my husband and I.  It had a nice minty taste and was a more upscale and cleaner tasting version of the oil-laden bean salads of my youth.   This one we would score a 8/10.

The potatoes were a huge hit–the Parmesan cheese is the dominant taste here and who can argue with a dish that has a quarter cup of butter in it?   Very much a comfort food.  I did up the seasonings a bit–it would have been slightly bland otherwise and I used fresh instead of dried oregano and basil.  This was a 9/10 for certain!