Runner Beans

Oh yum!

Fab!

What are we having these with ,Amy? I'm on my way ! They look delicious :o) x

Mmmmm Expect me for tea any time now;0)

You can sit next to me Carole..if you promise not to steal any from my plate,when I'm not looking ! :o) x

Home made steak & kidney pie & new potatoes from the garden ,you would both be very welcome , what a shame I didn't read this earlier because its all gone now Lol .. x

Sounds delicious Amy..... cannot beat beans from the garden.

Here, hear, Dd, you are so right about home grown. I don't know what the shops do to them but they just don't have the taste. Our runners & French beans are doing well this year.

Well done Gf wish we had the room......

Lovely AMy. We only have one totem pole of runner beans and one of French beans but they both seem to be doing very well. You certainly can taste the difference.

Thanks girls Glad to hear yours are doing well Gf and Linda , If you lived nearer you could have some Angela :o)

My favourite vegetable from the garden.

It's a good idea to spray the flowers in the middle of the day, with water when the weather is dry to help set the flowers..

Mine to Chris , thanks for the tip Linda :o)

ah scarlet runners! will you pickle them?

I've never heard of pickled runners Lori ,I remember years ago when folk salted them down in jars for the winter ,we eat them fresh or freeze them ...

So we did, and it was difficult to get all the salt out too.

Yes Stera very salty ,I didn't like them I'm sure they couldn't be very healthy !

Hi Lori, we did make pickle from the beans one year bu a long time ago. Amy, in years gone by, people used to jar beans to keep them as there weren't a lot of fridges in those days. I can remember my mum keeping the milk in a bucket of cold water to keep it fresh.

We did things like that Linda , I remember digging a square hole outside the front door with a square of wood to cover it for the milk man to put our bottle of milk in to keep it cool when I was at work , funny how all these things come back to you ...

We had a slab and also an earthenware milk cooler that had to be kept damp. In a heatwave Dad would bring home a huge block of ice, I think from the fish market, and we put it in the dolly tub and rested the butter etc on it. it would last for two or three days.

We didn't have a pantry or a slab so we used to fill a bucket with cold water & stand the milk in that.

I love reading about all these old methods to keep food cool we were an inventive lots weren't we , we had a pantry at my fathers house and a marble slab ... no supermarkets then just a little village store , a cobbler to mend your shoes a forge and a bakers van twice a week ... I can't even remember a butcher but there must have been one somewhere or another van doing the rounds ...

Amy, your post reminded me about the butchers shop, that was the one place I didn't like going to with my Nan when we went to do the shopping. There were always rabbits hanging up on hooks & trays of slippery liver, sawdust on the floor & lots of flies - yuk.

I found even after blanching they were much less tender after freezing. Anyone else found this or is it just me? I don't freeze them any more. (Didn't even grow any this year - last year was a flop and put me off)

I went to a great deal of trouble one year with prep, blanching, then into ice water, then drying them off before packing into bags for the freezer. When we came to eat them they were so disappointing, tough & flavourless, so now we just eat copious amounts when fresh & then wait for next years crop.

Never had any success freezing runner beans, either. That's why I asked about pickling them... have seen recipes but never tried. done with dill, I imagine they might taste good. I ate enough runner beans to turn me green, but after a while they get huge and tough, so I save those for seed. Sad, this is the first year since we've been here that I haven't grown them! planted bush beans instead...and they're finally producing after the drought set them back. Fresh steamed green beans with butter.... YUM!