Giant beans (Greek gigantes) with greens

This scrumptious Greek recipe combines white runner beans (gigantes) with an assorted combination of greens, like chicory, swiss chard and different leafy greens. This plant-based meal is served with a squeeze of recent lemon juice.

Γίγαντες με λαχανικά. Have you met my mother and father? If you’ve got, in particular person, then you’ve got hopefully visited them in the summertime and brought a stroll by their backyard. They love sharing this outdoors oasis with household, pals and folks they only met. A backyard is a whole lot of arduous work, however the payoff is priceless. The pleasure of rising your personal meals, understanding that it’s as recent and as clear as attainable – effectively, there’s nothing higher. It additionally presents a perspective that you could’t actually recognize in any other case. A backyard, huge or small, offers you a glimpse into the work that our farmers and agriculturalists experience every day to keep us fed.

Growing up Greek, I’ve by no means identified life with no backyard. When our house was an house on the second flooring of a constructing within the metropolis’s Mile End district, greens have been potted and positioned on the balcony and on the steps of the outside staircase resulting in our entrance door. Then, after they had entry to a yard, my mother and father took full benefit. They went from a number of pots of tomatoes, eggplants and peppers to rows upon rows of greens, herbs and fruit timber. The eggplants they nonetheless saved in pots nevertheless.

Some of the issues that my mother and father develop are greens. There is all the time spinach, chicory, swiss chard, lettuce, parsley and amaranth greens being tended. They use these in all types of recipes like their spanakorizo and stewed swiss chard recipe and this recipe for large beans (gigantes) with greens.