Ode to the Amish

As promised in This Post, I wanted to share this recipe for a Tangy Marinated Bean Salad.  I am quite fond of the jarred variety, something like this one, but from Costco and it comes in a two pack of jars to feed a family of 100 (that doesn’t mean I can’t sit down and polish one off myself).

That said, knowing me and my love of making things myself instead of buying prepared, I was very excited to find this recipe for Tangy Marinated Bean Salad in my new cookbook.  My Mother-in-Law travels through Amish country quite a bit and is always thoughtfully bringing back wonderful gifts.  The most recent thing she brought home for me was a copy of The Homestyle Amish Kitchen Cookbook.  It’s really quite a good and useful cookbook.  They also use a lot of Velveeta.

I thought that the bean salad would be a good side dish to prepare ahead of time and eat throughout the week.  Here are the ingredients:

Tangy Marinated Bean Salad

1 can green beans, drained
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
1 can kidney beans, drained
1/2 onion, finely chopped
1 cup celery, finely chopped
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup vinegar
1/4 cup oil

The directions are simply to mix he ingredients and marinate overnight.  Beautiful and simple.  I left out the celery, because quite honestly, there are few things I hate more than celery.  Also, the recipe doesn’t specify what kind of oil, so I used my standard go-to olive oil.  Personally, I thought this salad was alright and it had a healthy taste about it.  I didn’t love it as much as the jarred variety (They must include an addictive chemical to cause you to want to down an entire jar in one sitting).  Dear Husband thought it far too vinegar-y and didn’t care to eat too much of it.

My modifications were a squeeze of a lemon wedge and a teaspoon of white sugar.  I don’t know that I’ll make this again any time soon, but if I do, I’ll remember to add more sugar, more lemon juice and less vinegar.  In fact, I may try cider vinegar instead.  In the mean time, even though this was a super cheap alternative to the jar, I think I’ll stick to the jar for now.  Perhaps one day I’ll scrutinize that damn jar label and get it right.  Suggestions are welcome.