Garden Fresh Green Beans with Tarragon Butter

By Kath Dedon

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We were thrilled to harvest fresh green beans from our garden yesterday! I made Green Beans with Tarragon Butter to accompany Pork Chops à la Julia.

There won’t be a lot of beans this year. We were a bit late to the party getting them planted, we didn’t plant enough, and it’s been a cool summer in Seattle. Last night’s beans were SO good, though, that we are inspired to plant more next year.

We have two varieties. Blue Lake Bush beans are classic green beans. The Roma II Bush Beans are the flat, lighter green colored beans. They are the kind of beans that “squeak” when you bite into them.  Together, with a bit of butter and tarragon, they were fabulous!

I rarely buy green beans at the grocery store because they usually look terrible. When they look like they’ll be alright, I’ll boil them for 5 minutes. With our homegrown fresh beans, I decided that a 4 minute boil would be enough, and they were perfect.

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Garden Fresh Green Beans with Tarragon Butter

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(print the recipe)

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(1/2 pound Blue Lake Bush Beans and Roma II Bush Beans (the flat ones) just picked!)

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Serves 2

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½ pound fresh green beans, washed, ends trimmed, and sliced into 1½ – 2 inch slices

About 1½ teaspoons salt (I used sea salt.)

2 teaspoons butter

1 heaping teaspoon fresh tarragon, minced

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1. Bring a pot of water to a boil.

2. Add the salt to the boiling water.

3. Add the beans to the water and boil for 4 minutes. (Maybe 5 minutes if not quite as fresh)

4. Drain the beans; stir in the butter and tarragon and serve.