Artichoke and Bean Salad is a simple green bean salad with the added interest of artichokes (and fewer carbs!).

Artichoke and Bean Salad

by Sue Lau | Palatable Pastime

I always like to have marinated and chilled salads around during warm weather. There are endless variations and each can have its own personality depending on what is in your pantry or what is available at your local farm market.

Here in Ohio, we are blessed with an abundance of farm markets, which typically get busy in late spring and continue through the summer months until the weather turns and at last, stacks of pumpkins adorn the sides of roadways with bundled corn shocks and baskets of local apples.

I have been making this version of bean salad for some time now, and this photo is one I recently updated from an older photo taken on a much smaller camera. (I am hoping it looks much nicer!)

I had just recently been curled up in the reading chair with the  cookbook Mastering the Art of Southern Vegetables, by Southern Cooking mavens Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubart. It is a companion volume to the beautifully written tome Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking (written by the same). Both are indispensable for gaining knowledge into the extensive area of Southern American cuisine. This recipe does not come from either of those books, but while I was reading the vegetable cookbook which discusses some of the ways fresh artichokes might be prepared, I realized that I am not that big on the fresh artichokes. It’s not that I can’t prepare them easily, because I can. And it’s not that they aren’t delicious, because they are. But by the time I get done pricking my fingers,  prepping them, cooking them, and then eating them, I really don’t think there is a whole lot to them. I feel much the same way about  picking crab, or getting anything usable from fresh pomegranate arils besides a few sprinkled on salads (if I need more, I typically just buy juice.)

So like the pomegranates,  which can be had other ways, I am also a fan of the ways artichoke hearts in cans or jars or frozen, can be used. I love them in salads, and also in dips. Italian food simply shines with artichokes. It really puts a chicken pasta over the top, and I should not have to explain what it does to pizza (if you haven’t tried artichokes on pizza, you are sorely missing out!!!)

Because the fact is, I do love artichokes, and the copious amounts I can move through requires things to be expedited and more efficient for me. Delicious they are, but like crab, I’d rather have someone else do it, and since I can’t afford to have a personal sous chef do my dirty work, I am on my own.

So to the jars we go (and cans) and if you can find them, frozen. And thusly, this salad comes together fast. Which sends me off to other things, giving me the valuable times to make my own sauces, such as ketchup, and other condiments and basic homemade pantry necessities, or just a few extra minutes to spend writing the blog, surfing the net, or puttering outside in the yard.

When you make this, feel free to add a pinch of this or that or take something out, as cooks usually do, Salads are very forgiving in that regard, which makes things all that much easier for us in the kitchen.

I do hope this recipe is one you will enjoy, because it is well received in my home, and one that I will return to again and again.

~Sue

You might also like:

No-Mayo Slaw with Poppyseed Dressing

Roasted Cauliflower Mock Potato Salad

Cucumber Salad with Lovage and Gorgonzola

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