Steamed Veggies with Horseradish Vinaigrette

A few weeks ago I received a bunch of green beans in my CSA box…  but not the regular green beans, the haricot vert French-kind green beans…  thinner and crisper than the regular ones.

As you may have read here already, I am not a bean fan.  But green beans are a completely different thing.  I grew up eating French-style green beans from a can.  It was one of the choices of ready-to-eat veggies we were given – green beans, canned corn or sliced tomatoes…  and they had to be the thin french ones, because the fat, stubby regular ones were not the same… you could see the little beans inside and that would be a no-no for me.

But evolving into fresh green beans is something much more recent… as I was explaining to a friend the other day, canned and fresh greens beans are two completely different things.  And after you’ve tried the fresh kind, you’ll never go back to canned, ever.

To me the easiest way to prepare them is steaming them…  and I top them with some sort of olive oil-based dressing.  This time around was with prepared horseradish.  Check it out…

 

 

STEAMED VEGGIES WITH HORSERADISH VINAIGRETTE

About 4-5 baby red bliss potatoes, washed and cut in half

A small handful of haricots verts or french-style green beans, trimmed

The juice of 1 lemon

1 tbs of prepared horseradish

Salt and Pepper to taste

About 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil

 

1. In a medium pot, I cook some potatoes in a little bit of salted water.  I boil/steam them over medium heat in the covered pot for about 15 minutes.
2. 
3. When the potatoes are about to be done, I place the trimmed green beans on top of the potatoes, cover the pot again and let them steam  about 2-3 minutes.  After that,  I turn the stove off and leave them there for about 5 minutes more until the green color in the beans is super bright.  Super easy.   
4. 
5. While the beans steam, prepare the dressing…
6. In a measuring cup whisk together the lemon juice, horseradish, olive oil, salt and pepper.   Drizzle over veggie and enjoy.

                   

Watch out…  make sure the horseradish you use does not contain egg or egg yolks in it.  I bought mine at Whole Foods and as you can see by the labeling, it does not contain any egg.  Just be careful if you’re traveling with it, because airport security might consider it a liquid and might take it away.  I was LUCKY I got a nice security person and let it slide…