Ginger Green Beans and Spring Smashed Potatoes

I've had a lot of disappointing adventures in the kitchen recently. I tried making jam, which resulted in me having a strawberry flavoured explosion in the kitchen.  Then I tried to tackle making ravioli. It turns out that pasta is REALLY difficult to make.  Well maybe not so much difficult as finicy? Anyway, it ended up being more like delicious sweet potato filling in a leather wallet. Ick. The recipe for the ravioli and filling is from Petite Kitchenesse and was actually a great recipe. I'm definitely going to try out that filling again. I will be honest, I ended up eating most of it with a spoon :)

So when I finally got something right in the kitchen, even if it's something simple, I wanted to share it with you folks.  Sadly, because I'm horrible at remembering to get photos, there are no photos... but I'm sure you can use your imaginations.

I picked up some big juicy looking Toulouse sausages from the butcher yesterday, and decided to do a lemony potato smash and a green bean dish (thanks to the ladies on Facebook who helped me decide on green beans).

The potatoes were prepared according to this recipe which I posted a few months ago, with a few modifications, see below.

Ginger Green Beans and Spring Smashed Potatoes
Ginger Green Beans
~500g fresh green beans, washed, trimmed and sliced into 1-2" sections
1-2 t fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small red chili pepper
olive oil
sesame oil

Spring Smashed Potatoes
4 desiree potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
2 spring onions
zest of half a lemon
juice of half a lemon
1/2 t hot english mustard (optional)
1-2 T butter 
2 T white wine vinegar
salt
chives

Spring Smashed Potatoes

1. Place peeled, roughly chopped potatoes in a pot of cold water, add a pinch of salt.
2. Place over med-high heat, bringing to a boil and cooking potatoes for 30-40 minutes.
3. Clean and chop green onions.
4. Drain cooked potatoes and toss into a large bowl with butter, lemon juice, vinegar, green onion and lemon zest.
5. Mix well, smashing potatoes slightly with a large spoon but leaving some textured clumps.
6. Add hot English mustard, salt and chives to taste.  If potatoes seem dry, add more lemon juice, vinegar or butter as desired.

Ginger Green Beans

1. Heat a small amount of olive oil in a frying pan. 
2. Add green beans and toss in oil. Cook at medium heat for 5-10 minutes.
3. Add garlic, ginger and chilli, tossing to coat in oil.
4. Cook for further 5 minutes, or until green beans are desired level of 'crunch'.
5. Transfer to a serving bowl and add a small glug (1-2 t) sesame oil for flavour.

I keep forgetting to include this in recipes - but this makes enough green beans for two and enough potatoes for probably 4, but I love leftover potatoes.  These are simple enough that I'm sure you can figure out how to scale these recipes up to feed more people.

On a side note - I actually much prefer my mashed/smashed potatoes with the skin still on, but the potatoes I picked up this week had really dry and scaly looking peels.  Clearly not the best produce is available at the supermarket in the mall.  Not only does leaving the skin on the potatoes give a nice visual effect, it also provides texture and more importantly, I'm told that there is a lot of good vitamins and minerals directly under the skin.

For the green beans, this is a variation on a recipe I've been toying with for a while - the Chinese 5 spice green beans. I'm constantly changing it around. Adding discs of ginger instead of finely chopped bits, adding bacon or water chestnuts, sometimes some toasted sesame seeds.  It's something that's easy to have a lot of fun with and (unless you have 5 spice to add) requires very little effort towards seasoning. Really, green beans are one of the best vegetables.

Is it weird that my grocery store and butcher are in a mall?