Fresh green and yellow beans are abundant right now…at least at the Farmer’s Market! Since my poor bean plants were dried out and then drowned, if I wanted my four bean salad for the winter, I had to count on the Farmer’s Market to supply them. In one quick trip to the local market I was able to bring home 6 lbs. of green and yellow beans, onions and red peppers. I also had celery, kidney beans and chickpeas ready to go.
Here is the original recipe:
For this next batch of Four Bean Salad I doubled the recipe. I started with 6 lbs. of green and yellow beans, snapped and washed.
In this post, I’ll try to edit the recipe so you can see what I need to change the next time. I was hoping to make 19 pints, which would fill my canner. However, at 16 pints I ran out of the pickling solution. I decided to just put the extra blanched vegetables in jars and put them in the fridge. I’ll use the bean mixture in soup or over rice as is.
The original recipe called for chopped celery, red pepper and onion. I did not care for how the onions turned out last time (kind of stringy and slimy) so this time I chopped the onions like the peppers. (Picture below is from last year!)
I wanted more chickpeas in the mix, so I added three cans and 2 cans of kidney beans.
I did double the recipe for the pickling solution, but I was still short about 3 cups.
Bert got us into production mode with the propane tank and the canner!
Here are the finished 16 jars ready for the shelf. I’ll wait a month or so before I try this batch…give the pickling solution time to work!
The three extra jars are in the refrigerator ready to heat up and eat!
Here is the revised recipe:
Since I was short about 3 cups in the pickling solution, I added more vinegar, sugar and water to the recipe.
Next time should be better but I’ll sure enjoy these!